Let’s find a way to… start positive conversations about development

 “But the school is overflowing!” “I can’t get a doctor’s appointment as it is!” What about all the extra traffic?”

Wherever there is a proposed development, you’ll find concerns like these – legitimate worries that need to be listened to and acted upon. Any responsible developer will have answers to these questions and should be able to demonstrate the positives their scheme will bring to the local community. As urban planners we know you can’t please all the people all of the time, but it is possible to reassure most of them, most of the time.

Wouldn’t it be great, though, if the conversation started differently? If we started off with positives instead of responding to negatives? What if there was a way to proactively explain to concerned neighbours how developments fund local improvements, affordable homes and play areas? To tell them how local labour and supply chains are used, and how financial contributions are made to fund police and fire services, the NHS, and sports pitches? To help them understand how residential areas build communities, drive local demand for shops and services, and create employment and prosperity?  If this was communicated with any development, maybe – just maybe – it would help avoid an ever-increasing resentment toward developers. After all, all they currently hear about is the bad stuff.

Most of the time we don’t communicate these positives nearly well enough. The whole process of planning is a mystery to the average person – with an air of mistrust around it. It plays out like this:

• Councils are required to deliver a number of homes in their area, so they produce a plan for their patch

• At some point a leaflet drops through the door with the junk mail, asking a resident if they want to get involved. The resident isn’t motivated to do so because they believe it doesn’t affect them – it’s something vague about the whole district.

• Then a development is announced in their immediate area, and they’re concerned. People around them start to talk. There are worries about traffic, school places, pressure on surgeries. There don’t seem to be any positives. Who do they speak to? How do they stop it? So the poor local councillor spends their evenings on the phone and responding to emails trying to find out what’s going on and appeasing those concerned as well as fending off the prying local newspaper.

• The community benefits are poorly communicated, usually through the planning process, on a portal in chapter 6.3 of a document called something boring like a Planning Statement. Maybe the benefits come out defensively during planning consultations in breezy church halls in response to people who are already angry and cynical.

• The development happens, and the developer – having done its job – moves on. The agreed financial payments are made to the local authority and at some point down the line, when it has a big enough pot of cash, the council spends it in a way that nobody realises is linked to the development in the first place. And then the cycle starts again.

Is it any wonder that your worried neighbour feels like they don’t have a say – that the whole process is a foregone conclusion, and that their views don’t matter?  Because no one is having the right conversation at the right time. And no wonder councillors never see development as a vote winner.

Surely, we can find a better way than this.

What we need is a positive conversation that begins at the plan-making stage – not the plan for each individual scheme, but the one for the whole local area. Let’s ditch the useless questions – “Do you think homes are important?” “Do you think employment is important?”. What do they tell us?

Instead, let’s facilitate conversations around “What do you want your future area to be?”, “How do you want to live?” “What’s great about your area? What’s not?”  “Change is inevitable, so what do you want that change to be?”. There are a myriad of different ways for communities to be engaged in planning for their area, using community planning weekends, forums, making use of online tools – all helping to prepare neighbourhood plans, community plans, Action Plans – or simply to guide change.  And none of them can just happen once  with months in between – it requires a continuous conversation, and someone to drive the process. Then, when that local development comes along, people could be much more knowledgeable, prepared, and willing to engage.

So – who’s going to start the conversation? At the moment, for planning applications, the onus is on the developer, but that won’t work. They haven’t got the big picture, and while the best developers will do all they can to engage, ultimately they’re not in it for the long haul. Councils engage in preparing their Local Plans, but these are too infrequent – and, to the average resident, too unrelatable.

If only there was an elected official, who acts in the local interests of the community. Someone who can influence the council, access grants, find out information, access grants and bring the community together.

Of course, we already have these, and we call them local councillors. They’re the ones bearing the brunt of the moans and groans. They’re the ones in the unenviable position of trying to appease constituents while delivering the council’s housing obligations. It’s a no-win situation.

BUT, what if they were bringing people – residents, business groups, developers – together, and leading the conversation instead?

It requires a change of mindset, but we know it’s possible. They could spend their time leading the positive conversation now, instead of the difficult one later on. Yes, they will need guidance and support, but they are in the unique position to take the lead, create ownership of communities, and build trust – to create successful places that can grow in a good way  Some do this already – and what a difference it makes, finding that taking control has far more benefits than not.  If we all pull together, we can help them make it happen.

Come on, local politicians – #letsfindaway