PLACED Assistant Director, Sam Hayes, has been reflecting on the new Get Britain Building call from Kier Starmer and Rachel Reeves with a blog of his thoughts.
“Get Britain building” is the call from Kier Starmer and Rachel Reeves. Since arriving at Downing Street, the Labour Party have shaken up how many homes Councils should provide, reintroduced housing targets, promised and started planning reform, ended a moratorium on onshore wind farm construction, and talked up runway, power station and other infrastructure construction. Long story short, big plans for planning and construction. You can read more here.
This isn’t about whether those individual ideas are feasible or desirable, but from PLACED HQ we can’t help but notice some inevitable conflict not so far down the line. Indeed, it’s already with us. The UK may have plenty of undeveloped land on paper, but realistically all that construction must be accommodated by communities in one way or another. Construction is disruptive and changes places, and not always in ways local communities want or in ways professionals acknowledge. Development and regeneration can spark positive change and revitalisation, but they can also drive gentrification, NIMBYism, local protest campaigns and all too often anger and community trauma.
As community engagement specialists, one of the things we’re thinking about and observing in the sector is the increasing reliance on adopted policies and strategies to justify, some might say push through, decisions on big construction projects. Whether that’s Local Plan allocations on housing, Strategic Regeneration Frameworks on estate re-development. Some promise strategies paving the way of billions in investment, thousands of homes and jobs.
But we’re also seeing considerable backlash in some cases, in the form of local campaigns in Salford, campaigns on social housing, Councillors in Oldham voting to withdraw from Places for Everyone, the general revolt that led to the end of the Greater Manchester Clean Air Zone before it even started or further afield, a Chief Planner stepping in to prevent Councillors voting in Kent.
Press releases regularly announce the “highest profile regeneration project in the country,” yet these transformative plans require no meaningful community engagement or community engagement expertise on consultant teams. Whilst there’s been great progress in terms of engagement being increasingly a requirement in tenders, too often local councils still only require only the minimum public consultation needed to approve the document. Consultation often comes too late in the process, reaches too few and presents communities with a fait accompli. There’s little evidence required of the changes made as a result of engagement, and when it gets to detailed design phases or delivery, engagement is often absent.
From our point of view this reveals a weakness in the current system and a potential future crisis for community voice. A reliance on strategic decisions and planning documents which do not have public support or even public awareness are surely more likely to come unstuck.
We’re not suggesting community engagement can guarantee smooth development processes, but we would confidently suggest that alongside any aspiration to “Get Britain building” we need to “Get Britain talking”. Community engagement before policies are written – from the very early policy stages through to construction and beyond – is essential to hold up those decisions and bring communities along. Perhaps more radically, community engagement early on could even direct regeneration efforts and lead to better results for all.
As someone who taught planning for a good while, it’s revealing to me how some aspects of planning education don’t survive into practice. Sherry Arnstein wrote her paper describing the ladder of citizen participation back in 1969. While we’ve certainly taken strides forward and participation has improved, as a profession we still seem to be struggling to climb the ladder towards genuine public engagement. I think we’ll regret the approach many policy and strategy development processes take as communities learn too late about the changes proposed for their local areas.
Get in touch if you think we could support in your project. At PLACED we bring people together to make better places. We understand that buildings don’t make a place, people do. By engaging with and advocating for less-heard voices alongside regular contributors, we empower people to feel able to share their views in a meaningful way.
We are experts in engagement, community facilitation and education, and firmly believe that locally driven and diverse insight informs and supports the creation of thriving, resilient and considered spaces.
Because when it comes to the places where we live, work and play; every voice should be given the opportunity to be heard.