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This thesis explores the relationship between land tenure and land use, and specifically, the involvement in woodland management of tenants holding land under crofting tenure in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. In the early 1990s, several changes to the social and political context of land use in Scotland were occurring. Forestry policy began to reflect growing environmental concerns; agricultural policy encouraged diversification of land use and farm incomes; and changes to land tenure were being proposed and debated, with crofting tenure taking a prominent place. Tenancy as legal and social relations, and the way in which law is constructed and interpreted are explored. A socio-legal approach was used, drawing on the perspectives of sociology and geography of law. A combination of qualitative methods were used, including in-depth interviews with tenants and with staff of a range of organisations, questionnaires, and analysis of public records, legislation, judicial decisions and the press. Applications by tenants throughout Scotland for planting grants were taken as a starting point. Of the relatively small number of such applications, it was found that the vast majority of tenants involved in woodland schemes were crofters. Two types of crofter initiative were seen, those by households and those by villages on common grazings. These were investigated, in order to explain their type and geographical distribution, reflecting both the regulatory framework and the state of community life and crofting. Improving the environment and the benefits of shelter and fencing, rather than timber production, were the main motivations, reflecting the opportunities given by the changes in forestry policy. Unlike agricultural tenants, crofters' status as tenants was not seen as an obstacle that had to be overcome, and there are many other reasons why crofters do not become involved in woodland. In general, though, their legal rights are of little concern to crofters until a conflict arises. A small minority of village schemes, however, ran foul of the legislative provision that landlords must give consent.

The advent of the tramway was a major innovation in urban transport provision and the introduction of tramway services was a landmark in the urban history of a large number of towns and cities in the British Isles. This work is concerned with the spread of tramway services at the national, regional and local scales. The date of introduction of services and the eventual density of the tramway network were used as measures of spread. Analysis of the diffusion patterns revealed changes in the incidence and intensity of hierarchical and contagious elements both over time and at different scales. In addition the pattern analysis revealed a complex of particularities within the overall diffusion sequences which suggested that, in this instance at least, attempts to construct rigid mathematical models of diffusion patterns would bear little fruit. Particularly at the national and regional scales and on occasions even within individual towns the spread of tramway services was in the hands of more than one company or authority and thus analysis of the processes behind the formal patterns proved to be a difficult task. At the national scale analysis of the 'behaviour' of a number of tramway promoters provided a clue to a clearer understanding of the 'diffusion agencies' partly responsible for the observed hierarchical patterns. Lowering the level of resolution to the spread of tramway services in Greater London the work suggested that while the importance of a small group of tramway promoters was still apparent, municipal enterprise was also a force in spreading and integrating the tramway network. Finally at the local scale attention was switched to the 'adoption' side of the diffusion equation and insight was gained into the 'stages' involved in the initial introduction and adequate expansion of tramway services within a town.

This thesis examines the effect of the Malaysian planning system on housing development. It focuses on the developers' behaviour in two areas with different planning regimes, Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru. The thesis attempts to explore the interactions of developers with government policies, rules and regulation imposed by the local planning authority in each area. The structure and agency model is used as the main methodological approach to explain the behavioural aspects of developers' activity, in particular looking at the developers' response towards planning controls. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches is used to analyse information from the survey and the interviews. The quantitative analysis provides the broad context of the study and identifies the differences between the two areas. The emphasis on the qualitative approach provides the research with richer, more insightful findings which could not be revealed quantitatively. Even though developers perceive the local planning authority in Johor Bahru to be exercising a stricter planning regime than in Kuala Lumpur, the study reveals that developers in both areas face common problems relating to land availability, planning delays and increasing costs of development. To overcome these problems the developers have employed various strategies, such as land bank, 'rent-seeking' and phasing. The findings reveal that the success of these strategies varies between the two areas which ultimately affect the development of housing in these areas. The problems should be addressed by both the government and the developers in order to ensure the achievement of the housing programme. In addition to the corrective measures by the developers, the approval authority should review the overall procedure, regulations and policies, which have had cost implications. The study suggests the needs for the element of certainty in the planning systems.

Over the past twenty years environmental impact assessment (EIA) has proved to be a useful tool in many countries to evaluate the positive and negative effects of implementing development projects. It also became a key tool to support environmental decision-making. Many lessons can be learned from past experience, including that there could be some advantages in extending the EIA concept to policy and planning levels. In so doing, many difficulties that arise when assessing negative impacts at the project level might be overcome, or at least minimized. Some countries already provide examples of the application of EIA to policy and plans. However, difficulties exist for two key reasons. First when addressing policies and plans, an EIA approach similar to project EIA is being used. Given differences in terms of content and detailed approaches when comparing policies and plans with projects, it is likely that a different form of EIA should be used. Second, it is increasingly recognized that an integration of environmental issues in policy-making and planning processes is required to enable environmentally sound policy and planning decisions to be made. A procedure to assess environmental impacts in the comprehensive land-use planning process, which is also applicable at the policy level, is proposed. In this procedure it is assumed that an integration of environmental issues in the planning process must occur so that a more environmentally sound planning practice occurs. This step is fundamental at this level of action to allow an environmental assessment and review approach to be used in a way that is integrated with the planning process, but which adopts a flexible and adaptive nature, to help achieve more sustainable planning practice. International experience is considered, both in relation to recent legal and procedural advancements and case-study analysis. Two case-studies in Portugal, which address a regional and a municipal plan, and the simulation by the use of an independent experts commission in the environmental assessment and review process are presented before conclusions are drawn.

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