BRISTOL LOCAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK
Statement of Community Involvement
Consultation Draft September 2005
COMMENTS BY BRISTOL CIVIC SOCIETY
CONTENTS
1.0 CONCLUSION
2.0 INTRODUCTION
3.0 TESTING THE SOUNDNESS OF THE STATEMENT
4.0 OVERVIEW OF BCS COMMENTS
5.0 THE SUMMARY TESTS OF SOUNDNESS
BRISTOL LOCAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK
Statement of Community Involvement
Consultation Draft September 2005
COMMENTS BY BRISTOL CIVIC SOCIETY
1.0. OVERALL CONCLUSION.
1.1. The process for making community involvement in the planning process effective is not an easy one to manage. Nevertheless it is a central part of the new planning system. Rightly so. To achieve this the Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) must succeed in making clear to the public and to the Council alike exactly how and when communities can be involved in a way that gives them confidence that they can make a difference to the scope and content of development plans and permitted development.
1.2. What is needed above all is for the City Council to proactively manage the involvement process both in plan-making and in the control of development through planning applications. The SCI “must ensure the active, meaningful and continued involvement of local communities and stakeholders throughout both processes” (National Planning Policy 12 section 7.0 “Managing Community Involvement”)
1.3. The present Draft SCI does not ensure this. Given the difficulties that there will always be in managing this complex process, the Consultation Draft SCI is a comprehensive, good first draft but is not yet “sound”.
1.4. In our view, it does not pass at least five of the nine summary tests of “soundness” set out in PPS12, 3.10. It has only a conditional pass on the other four tests. Neither does it fully comply with the guidelines for good practice set out in PPS1, PPS12 and the Guide to PPS12. The document will also need to be much less tortuous in its language and its structure, if it is not to be a barrier to involvement in itself.
1.5. The reasons and proposals for change are set out below, but overall in our view the inherent weakness of the Consultation Draft SCI is that it relies upon a variety of old methods of “consultation” that neither worked well in the past nor have been properly evaluated. Without a sea-change they are not likely to work as effective methods of community involvement in the future.
2.0 INTRODUCTION
2.1. On 19 October 2005 a meeting of the Executive Committee of Bristol Civic Society resolved to submit the following comments on the Consultation Draft of the Statement of Community Involvement (Draft SCI) dated Sept 2005, in response to the invitation of the City Council.
2.2. A questionnaire to all members of the Society in August 2005 and a subsequent general meeting of members in September 2005 identified, among other things, that the need to make community involvement in the planning system much more effective and meaningful than in the past was very high on the list of concerns.
2.3. Bristol Civic Society has a direct involvement in and long standing experience of the effectiveness of the public consultation process in Bristol. This experience includes consideration of Regional Spatial Strategy; a series of Supplementary Planning Documents, both subject based and area based; several major and numerous minor planning applications; acting as a stakeholder in consultation “facilitation” exercises for major city centre planning applications and “hands on” involvement in community-initiated area planning schemes. The Society has also sat as a co-optee on the City Council Sustainability and Social Justice Scrutiny Commission and given witness evidence at the request of the City Council Select Committee on the Reform of the Planning System.
2.4. These comments are based upon that direct evidence and experience.
2.5. Depending upon how far the present draft is amended, these comments and/or others may form the basis of representations on the Submission Draft Statement of Community Involvement due to be submitted to the Secretary of State in January 2006, and/or evidence given at a Public Examination hearing.
3.0. TESTING THE SOUNDNESS OF THE STATEMENT
3.1. National Planning Policy Statement PPS12 explains that, following the consideration of written representations, where anyone making representations wishes to be heard, then an examination of the SCI in public will consider whether the SCI is “sound”. An Inspector will determine “soundness” against, among other things, nine tests. The Draft Consultation SCI sets out how the City Council proposes to meet the nine tests.
3.2. The detailed comments given in section 4.0. of necessity follow the format of the 9 tests of “soundness” suggested in PPS12 3.10 and chosen by the City Council for the present Consultation Draft SCI. However, testing cannot in our view be limited to that particular summary form of wording. The whole of PPS1 and PPS12 are statements of national policy. Authorities should also address certain basic questions and set out their main principles (source: PPS12 7.2. and 7.3). The Inspector at any Examination will also consider any representations which have been duly made (source: PPS12 Annex D)
3.3. Our understanding of Government aims for community involvement is based upon the following documents:
· Planning Policy Statement 1: National Planning Policies”, (PPS1)
· Planning Policy Statement 12: “Local Development Frameworks”, (PPS12), including 9 tests of the “soundness” of the Statement of Community Involvement.
· “Creating Local Development Frameworks”, A Companion Guide to PPS12.
· “Local Development Frameworks: A Guide to Procedures and Codes of Practice”
· “The Town & Country Planning (Local Development) (England) Regulations 2004”. Statutory Instrument 2204, and
· “Sustainability Appraisal of Regional Spatial Strategies and Local Development Frameworks” ODPM.
3.4. The Government considers that the “voluntary and community sector has a vital role to play” and “techniques are required to effectively involve” communities (source: PPS12). There should be opportunity to “fully participate in the process of drawing up specific plans and policies” and opportunity for communities “to say what sort of place they want to live in at a stage when they can make a difference” (source: PPS1). The SCI “must ensure the active, meaningful and continued involvement of local communities and stakeholders throughout” both the production of local development documents and the consideration of planning applications (source: Guide to PPS12).
3.5. The above regulations and good practice guidelines for community involvement set out five key ingredients of effective community involvement (Source: ODPM Guide to PPS12 paragraph 7.3 et al)
· To achieve an increase in the confidence of the community that its visions, ideas, proposals and choice of options will be built into the content of adopted development documents and the conditions of permitted planning applications.
· To achieve community involvement at the very earliest “ideas” stage in the preparation of development documents and the pre-application stage of planning applications (“front loading”).
· To achieve active and meaningful community involvement in developing proposals and in making the choice between options.
· To make community involvement a continuous and active part of the process of choosing, preparing, adopting and reviewing development documents.
· To show how proposals and adopted plans have been changed as a direct result of the community views and choices put forward during the community involvement process (“Feedback”).
3.6. We therefore understand that the basic purpose of the SCI is to set out clearly and unambiguously how, in a proactive and managed way, the local authority proposes to achieve all of these ingredients of effective community involvement in the Local Development Framework.
(source: PPS12 3.5) The SCI statement is not an end in itself but a means of improving the quality of the planning process (source: A Guide to PPS12 7.2)
3.7. Therefore these comments not only address the wording of the 9 tests but also take into account the complete and very clear guidance on good practice summarised in 2.5 above.
4.0 OVERVIEW OF BCS COMMENTS ON SOUNDNESS
4.1. The Draft SCI provides a very useful professional account of the many ways in which the communities of Bristol have been consulted about plans and planning applications in the past and proposes how they might be more effectively involved in future.
4.2. Before going into the detail of what is proposed we give an overview of our concerns about what the Draft SCI should say and does not say if it is to live up to the guidelines of good practice set out in PPS1, PPS12 and other documents.
4.3. The Society has ample written evidence, including real case examples, to support the following general points.
Community confidence in and satisfaction with the process.
4.4. Procedures to consult the public on development plans and planning applications are not new. Varying levels of involvement in consultation exercises have taken place on numerous occasions and on a variety of planning proposals.
4.5. It is clear from the guidelines that the key change intended by the latest planning reforms is not just that involvement should increase but that involvement is made more effective. Effectiveness is to be measured overall as an increase in the confidence of the community that it can make a difference and gain a sense of ownership of the planning process. (Source: Community Involvement in Planning: The Principles. ODPM Paragraph 2.11 et al)
4.6. Paragraph 1.6(c), page 1 of the Consultation Draft SCI says that the City Council’s Consultation Strategy 2001, updated 2004, provides an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the wide range of involvement methods the Council has employed. The analysis does indeed analyse the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of different consultation methods, including how “representative” the results might be. However the “strengths” and “weaknesses” of involvement are measured mainly as the amount of involvement produced, its cost to the Council and its usefulness to Council decision taking, rather than its effectiveness to the community.
4.7. Where a community view of the effectiveness of involvement is monitored at all, it is reported as low. In our experience, public confidence that involvement will be effective is particularly low because of the many examples, including the City Centre, Canon’s Marsh and Broadmead where community views that were initially built in to the plan, were subsequently changed during implementation.
4.8. The Draft SCI does not appear to monitor the success or failure of different involvement methods. The Society is not aware of any other serious attempts to monitor the effectiveness of past consultation procedures in terms of effect upon the community’s confidence in the system. Formal representations to City Council Scrutiny Commissions and Cabinet, and evidence to the Select Committees and to public inquiries would be useful indicators, and should be used.
“Front loading”.
4.9. As PPS12 says: “ It is essential that anyone that has an interest in the planning of an area actively seeks to assist the local planning authority to shape the future of that area from the earliest stage…”, and “…local community groups and the community, must not wait for the authority to finalise their development plan document before getting involved. To do so would be contrary to the aim of the new system to produce plans which deliver sustainable communities and have been prepared taking all interests into account”.
4.10. With some notable exceptions such as SPD3 (Redcliffe) and SPD1 (Tall Buildings), there has been little “front loading” of community involvement in Bristol to date. Judging from the reaction of the City Council Select Committee on the Reform of the Planning System, “front loading” is likely to be resisted by the authority on grounds of the cost of staffing and monetary resources, even though the clear evidence from model neighbourhood partnerships like Redcliffe is that those costs are low.
4.11. Front loading of involvement should begin with involvement in the choice of area and subject that should be in DPD’s or SPD’s. Front loading should continue in both plan preparation and the pre-application stage of planning applications, so that, at the first opportunity to be involved, the community is not presented with at best a half committed and at worst a wholly committed plan.
4.12. The Consultation Draft SCI does not appear to provide for front loading in the choice of the subject, area or type of plan to be part of the LDF. Also, it is not clear by what method the Draft SCI proposes to achieve effective front loading for plan and planning application preparation.
The choice between options.
4.13. There are well established processes outside the planning system that demonstrate very clearly that the public can make informed choices between options even where the factors involved are complex and require “expertise”. In the health system the concept and practice of informed choice based on the advice of clinical experts is now well established. In the criminal legal system the layman jury makes judgements based upon the examination of witness or expert evidence presented under cross-examination and impartially advised by the judge.
4.14. A similar approach should and can be taken in the local planning system. Professional officers and expert officers should explain the constraints created by the law or by other established policies, local and regional; report relevant good practice elsewhere; explain sustainability impacts and set out options.
4.15. Our experience is that professional planning officers and the expert consultants they employ all too often write in their own value judgements, even on matters of pure opinion. All too often involvement is sought after the verdict has been delivered. The Draft SCI does not appear to address this problem.
Sustainability
4.16. The complex question for which a clear, informed process of choice between options is vital is sustainability. The Guidelines on good practice put sustainability as the overriding objective for the various plans and documents within the planning process.
4.17. With the possible exception of “workshops” as a proposed method of involvement, it is not clear how the other ten methods of involvement proposed by the Draft SCI (Table A) will enable communities to be involved effectively in the debate of methodology, programme, indicators, targets and options as is required by the guidelines on the preparation of a Sustainability Appraisal (ODPM Sustainability Appraisal for RSS’s and LDF’s). We do not see that they can.
4.18. Meanwhile the use of a handbook “Towards Good Practice in Sustainable Urban Land Use” produced by the Bristol LA21 Land Use Group; exactly the type of method that could help communities make informed choice, has been postponed until the Action 20 Group of the Community Partnership produces a “toolkit” in 2007.
4.19. It is our experience that it is only at the neighbourhood scale of area plans that the community can have a proper understanding of and meaningful access to a debate on sustainability issues. The elements of sustainability: less car travel; more local, walking distance, social/health/education facilities; streets and public spaces with less crime/vandalism; a "niche" local economy that is commercially sustainable; an mix of house types/household lifestyles/social groups and so on; become real at the neighbourhood level. At this scale and type of plan-making the community’s everyday experience can meet on a level playing field with the local authority’s more intellectual concern for city-wide policy. It is a matter of using a common language. Yet to date the LDF does not contain, and the Draft SCI appears not to propose, action area plans as a method of involvement beyond the vague “existing community involvement initiatives” (Draft SCI Tables A and B). Why not?
Continuous involvement.
4.20. Although public consultation has long been a “stage”, usually a late stage, in the process of drawing up plans and considering planning applications, the new reforms call for a continuous programme of involvement from the very earliest conception of the need for a plan through to the formal adoption of that plan.
4.21. Our experience in Bristol is that community involvement is often made ineffective simply by the length of time between agreement on the need for action, through production of a plan to seeing the results on the ground. For effective involvement this time period has to be short enough to maintain commitment from communities that are of necessity dependent upon voluntary, unpaid and spare time resources.
4.22. The Draft SCI cannot be effective if it does not manage the involvement process with this in mind. There appears to be no reference to this time factor in the Draft SCI.
“Feedback” on implementation.
4.23. From a community point of view it is essential to show clearly how the results of community inputs in terms of vision, proposals and choices between options are properly built-in to development policies and development documents. If community confidence in the planning system is to be re-built, then effectiveness must mean result.
4.24. All too often in Bristol the community is presented with a final document, and later a final scheme, that fails to reflect its most important concerns expressed in “consultation”. In our view the Canons Marsh and Broadmead consultation processes are examples of this. The reasons lie not in any lack of declarations of intent that involvement will take place, but in the day to day detail of how involvement is managed, “facilitators” employed, attendance decided, views recorded, feedback given and plans altered.
4.25. The Draft SCI is not transparent on this. To be effective the SCI must set out in public the basic standards and ground rules on how involvement is to be conducted. This should ensure, for example, that the plan or permitted development should not be altered significantly during implementation, in adopted plan or on site, from the position established during the community involvement process.
5.0. THE SUMMARY TESTS OF SOUNDNESS
5.1. The Consultation Draft SCI sets out how the City Council proposes to meet nine “tests”. These are taken in turn with reference to paragraphs in the text of the Draft SCI.
5.2. Test 1: Show whether resources are available to manage community involvement effectively (Paragraphs 1.14 to 1.15 of the Draft SCI)
5.3. We understand that it is the clear view of Government that effective community involvement requires the allocation of sufficient resources of time, manpower and involvement methods (Source: Community Involvement in Planning: The Government’s Objectives, paragraph 1.8 et al).
5.4. The Government recognises, as we do, of course, that resources are not unlimited, nor the community’s desire for involvement unending, and that the choice of involvement method will have to take account of the resource implications upon the local authority. However, the test is whether the SCI makes clear how the Authority will allocate and manage resources so as to best achieve the five essential ingredients of community involvement (Paragraph 2.5. above) in particular cases.
5.5. Paragraph 1.15 of the Consultation Draft SCI does not make this clear. On the contrary, paragraph 1.15 explains that involvement programmes will be carefully related to the Council’s ability to resource and support them, not that the Council’s resources will be carefully allocated and managed to achieve the Council’s aim of effective community involvement.
5.6. Paragraph 8 on Page 8 further suggests that the type of involvement and the degree of “front loading” will depend upon the staffing resources presently available and not upon the need for more effective involvement.
5.7. Paragraph 2.10 on page 9 further proposes that the planning authority alone will choose the media for involvement depending upon the type of document and the resources and time it chooses to make available.
5.8. Table A column 4 on pages 10 through to 13 further implies that, other than the very minimum requirements for involvement required by the 2004 Regulations, community involvement in Bristol will be cost driven, not effectiveness driven.
5.9. We believe that at present the City Council perceive the cost of effective community involvement to be high. Our experience is that the cost appears high simply because of the enormous amounts of time required, both by the community and by the Council itself, to navigate its own labyrinthine inter-departmental bureaucracy. It is not because effective involvement itself requires high staff or monetary resources. Much of the resource required can come from the community itself. (Source: Evidence on the Redcliffe Neighbourhood Partnership given to the BCC Select Committee Nov 2004)
5.10. The clear implication of the Draft SCI is that existing resource limits will drive the level and nature of involvement, not the community’s desire and need for effective involvement; nor the Government’s clear intention that resources should be managed so as to achieve community involvement in a timely and accessible manner.
5.11. Therefore:
· We seek to change the Consultation Draft SCI
· In our view the Consultation Draft SCI does not pass this particular test. As it stands, it does not clearly show whether and how resources are to be made available to achieve community involvement effectively.
· The change we seek is:
(a) A clear explanation of how resources can be cost effectively managed to enable the community to be effectively and continually involved in the plan making process as measured by the five ingredients set out in Government good practice guidelines (see 2.5 above)
(b) A clear commitment that those resources will be made available.
5.12. Test 2: Show whether the Authority has mechanisms for reviewing the Statement of Community Involvement (Paragraphs 1.16 through to 1.19 of the Draft SCI)
5.13. We understand that the Government’s intention is that the SCI should be revised where significant changes have occurred either in the groups to be involved or in the method of involvement to be employed (Source: PPS12 paragraph 3.13.)
5.14. Paragraphs 1.17 through to 1.19 of the Consultation Draft SCI propose that a review will occur when either a development plan document is submitted to the Secretary of State or when a Supplementary Planning Document is published for consultation prior to adoption. The review will take account of comments from the community on the “ appropriateness” of the involvement methods. Where methods have proved “unsuccessful” a formal review of and resubmission of the SCI will be undertaken.
5.15. The Draft SCI appears to make no provision for testing or reviewing the SCI in respect of the effectiveness or otherwise of community involvement in planning applications. Neither is it clear what review has taken place or will take place on the effectiveness of community involvement methods in the production of the 13 Supplementary Planning Documents that presently make up the Local Development Framework.
5.16. Our view is that the mechanism for review proposed in the Draft SCI is very useful and progressive, except that the definitions of “appropriateness” or “success” are not made explicit. It is part of the essence of the SCI and indeed part of the key values of the City Council’s own Corporate Plan 2004-2007 that the Council will act in a transparent way.
5.17. Therefore:
· We seek to give conditional support to the SCI.
· In our view the SCI does not pass this particular test completely because there is no mechanism for the review of community involvement in planning applications and the tests of effectiveness in any review are not made transparent.
· The change we seek is:
(a) A review of the effectiveness of community involvement in the planning control process at the point when an application of types A or B (Draft SCI page 21) has been determined
(b) A review once each year when cumulative applications of types C & D Draft SCI page 21) have been determined.
(c) That the tests of “appropriateness” and “success” are made explicit and measured in terms of the how it affects the community as well as how it affects the City Council.
5.18. Test 3: Show whether the local planning authority’s strategy for community involvement links with other community involvement initiatives (Paragraph 2.9(a) (i) through to (iii) of the Draft SCI)
5.19. We understand that the Government’s intention is that where community involvement takes place in other initiatives beyond land use planning, then there should be a clear, transparent and logical link between the different forums.
5.20. The Draft SCI describes eight different forums of community consultation (Pages 6-8):
· the Action Groups of the Bristol Partnership;
· the Neighbourhood Renewal Partnerships;
· a range of community forums;
· the citizen’s panel;
· interest groups such as the Civic Society and Bristol Property Agents Association;
· area based regeneration initiatives;
· community forums;
· area plan groups such as Redcliffe and St Paul’s.
5.21. The Draft SCI says that the City Council will “create effective links” through “officers attending the meetings” and “undertaking formal written consultation” with the Bristol Partnership, Neighbourhood Renewal Partnerships and Community Forums; through “information and dialogue” on the Web site; through the Citizen’s Panel questionnaire and meetings; through “regular meetings” with Interest Groups such as the Civic Society; and through officers “attending meetings” of Area Regeneration Initiatives and Area Plans.
5.22. On the face of it, all of this seems laudable. However, it is not sufficient that these forums simply exist, or to say that “links” exist or to propose “dovetailing” between initiatives. This does not amount to an explicit strategy. A strategy would explain to the public how involvement in all these forums combines to produce the effects upon policy or plans that the public wishes. At present the community does not understand and has no means of understanding the relationship between all these groups. How is the community to know who is being consulted on what and what results from the different methods? How effective in terms of community involvement is a method such as “officers attending meetings” and “undertaking written consultation”?
5.23. Thus far, our experience is that the tangible results of involvement in, for example, the Bristol Partnership or attendance at Interest Group meetings are wholly obscure.
5.24. Therefore:
· We seek to change the SCI
· In our view the SCI fails to pass this particular test because it does not make it clear to members of the public how the various forums link into a logical programme of involvement; nor, when time available to the public is limited, does it enable members of the public to know if any particular forum is more effective than any other and worthy of their time.
· The change we seek is:
To show openly in one place and regularly review, the remit, representation, views given and resulting action taken for all involvement initiatives so that the strategy for involvement is clear and transparent. The public is thereby encouraged to be involved in what to many appears as a closed shop of favoured insiders.
5.25. Test 4: Show whether the local planning authority has complied with the minimum requirements for consultation as set out in the Town & Country Planning (Local Development) Regulations 2004 (Paragraph 2.10 tables A and B)
5.26. We would not expect to find any evidence that the Council has not and does not propose to meet the minimum regulations.
5.27. However the language used in the Draft SCI does not make it clear whether the SCI will comply with the Regulations or whether it will fail to meet them.
5.28. For example, along with regulations requiring notice to be given of planning proposals and time periods for the receipt of representations, the Regulations require that before the authority submits a Development Document to the Secretary of State, or before the authority adopts a Supplementary Planning Document, then a report will name any persons whom the authority consulted; say how those persons were consulted; summarize the main issues raised in those consultations; and say how those issues have been addressed in the plan. (source: Town & Country Planning Regulations 2004, Statutory Instrument 2204)
5.29. In the Draft SCI, Table B stage 4, it is proposed that there will be an explanation of how results of involvement affect the proposals in the plan. However, in the many SPD’s that already make up the LDF, where independent examination has not taken place, we are uncertain as to when and how the requirement for feedback has been met. We look for a clearer commitment to publish a feedback statement for the general public, including and beyond any “responses or meetings with individuals making representations” (Draft SCI Table B).
5.30. Therefore:
· We seek to give conditional support to the SCI.
· In our view the SCI does not pass this test completely because it is not clear to the general public when and how “feedback” on the effect of involvement on the proposals will be given, particularly in the case of the existing and any future SPD’s within the LDF.
· The change we seek is:
The addition of a clearer commitment to publish comprehensive feedback each and every time that community involvement occurs, both in the production of development plan documents and in the determination of type A or B planning applications.
5.31. Test 5: Show how the community and other bodies can be involved in a timely and accessible manner (Paragraph 2.10 table A column 1 & 2 )
5.32. We understand that timeliness and accessibility are aspects of the five basic requirements of effective involvement: community confidence, front loading, involvement in options, continuity and feedback.
How the community is involved in an accessible way.
5.33. The Draft SCI pages 10 through to 13 (Table A columns 1 and 2) propose twelve methods of involvement intended to give the community access to the planning process.
5.34. Our experience is that the methods proposed in items 1 through to 5 give access to information only. This is only one element of involvement. They are not effective involvement since they lack the essential elements of front loading, dialogue around clearly articulated options and clear feedback of the result of involvement upon plan commitments.
5.35. Methods 8, 9 and 10 are assumed to be effective because they inform officers of the Council of the views of the public. In our view this does not mean that they are effective in involving the public in a meaningful way. The Civic Society itself as an “Interest Group” (item 10). The Society has long been involved in regular meetings with the City Council. It is not always clear to the Society how these meetings have resulted in any change to the proposals in any particular development plan or any particular planning application.
5.36. It is difficult to see how method 11 (Internal Corporate Discussion) and to a lesser degree method 7 (Discussion with Statutory Consultees) can amount to effective community access at all, since the community have no access.
5.37. In our view Workshops (item 12) is potentially a very effective method of community involvement in Development Plan Documents and Planning Applications of types A and B (Page 21), provided that the workshops are conducted in a transparent, inclusive and straightforward way. We have examined many examples beyond Bristol where this method has been very successful (Evidence given to and reported by the City Council Select Committee on the Reform of the Planning System).
5.38. We have experience of the use of workshops both in plan-making and in pre-application discussions on planning applications, both for schemes promoted by the private sector and for schemes promoted by the City Council and other public agencies. This experience includes plans for Canon’s Marsh, Broadmead, Bristol Arena and a variety of smaller schemes, where external “facilitators” have been employed by the Council or by the applicant. In our view involvement in these cases has not been effective for reasons that include:
· Involvement tends not to begin until a developer has been appointed and definitive plans made. This is not “front loading”.
· “Involvement” has tended to amount simply to the supply of information on progress by the developer.
· The professional “facilitators” employed by the developer often arrive with the developer’s sole agenda and have on occasion refused to alter the agenda to include community items.
· Community involvement is often limited to defining abstract “aspirations” with the question of which aspiration is feasible or will be implemented being kept within the control of professionals or consultants who “know best”.
· The record of community views is open to manipulation.
· Community views can be accepted or ignored in an arbitrary way.
· Technical expertise is used generally to justify only one option rather than explore more than one option.
· Consultation may be repeated with long time intervals until community fatigue secures the “right” pre-determined view.
· Workshops are usually held as one-off or infrequent events with changing membership. This is not “continuous involvement”.
· Little change is made to original plans as a direct result of consultees view
5.39. The strengths of the workshop method of involvement can be employed and its weaknesses avoided by the formation of permanent, local community forums with open representative membership from residents, business and local ward Councillors and advised by community and public sector professionals. This is the successful model developed in Redcliffe and other community initiatives.
5.40. Therefore:
· We seek to change the SCI
· In our view the SCI fails to pass this particular test because:
(a) it does not actually tell the public how and by what methods people will be involved, but only gives “examples” of what might or might not be used.
(b) The methods of involvement proposed do not give full access to the community to front loading, a discussion of options, continuity or feedback. Workshops have the potential to do this but more often than not fail in practice.
(c) The method proposed that, in our view, potentially does give full access (workshops), need “ground rules” or quality standards for involvement, to be agreed as a compact between the community and the City Council. The Government Office South west is charged with promoting such compacts.
· The change we seek is:
(a) To make explicit what methods it is proposed to use.
(b) To use methods that enable front loading, discussion of options, and feedback.
(c) Include as part of the SCI a local compact governing the way in which workshop and other methods of community involvement should work in detail, to be agreed between the City Council and the community sector, as encouraged by PPS12 (section 3.7).
(d) To use the SCI to declare support for the formation of local community forums with open representative membership and involving local ward Councillors.
5.41. Test 6: Show whether the methods of consultation to be employed are suitable for the intended audience and for the different stages in the preparation of local development documents (Paragraph 2.10 table B columns 2,3 & 4)
5.42. We understand that suitability for different audiences and at different stages of plan preparation are aspects of the five basic requirements of community confidence, front loading, involvement in options, continuity and feedback.
Suitability at Different Stages
5.43. Table B columns 2, 3 and 4 propose eight steps in the production of a development plan document and four steps in the production of the Supplementary Planning Documents. For each step a variety of methods are proposed with the aim of giving the community effective involvement in each stage the development plan process.
Pre-production scoping (step 1)
5.44. The Draft SCI proposes to involve the community in the question of the need for and scope of Development Plan Documents within the Local Development Framework. This is very much welcomed.
5.45. However, the SCI does not set out how the various methods of involvement will effectively and transparently achieve this. Internal corporate discussions (item 1) and discussion with statutory consultees (item 2) cannot, by definition. If the other proposed methods are to work it will require more than “discussion”. It will require the community and the City Council to agree on a programme for the types, locations and subject matter for future SPD’s. There will need to be a forum and specific agenda for this discussion.
Preparation of issues and options (steps 2, 3 and 6)
5.46. The Draft SCI proposes that a “preferred options” document and Sustainability Appraisal will be published following Cabinet approval. This will then be open to public comment for 6 weeks before submission to the Secretary of State. In the case of plans involving land allocations any alternative allocations proposed by objectors to the draft plan will also be open for public comment.
5.47. The community will have, and should be encouraged to have, its own view of the options to be considered in development policies, plans and planning applications. Other than for land allocations, it is not clear how the methods of involvement proposed in the Draft SCI (Table B, item 2, column 4) will “establish a broad consensus on the preferred policy direction” (Table B item 2, column 5).
5.48. In practice the community may never have the opportunity to discuss options. For example, in the “consultation” process dealing with proposals to expand Broadmead, information was given out on the design of the anchor store. The community and stakeholders disapproved. At the next involvement meeting the same design was retained. Further demands for change resulted in another meeting where the same designs were presented. Time and patience ran out.
5.49. The national guidelines for the preparation of sustainability appraisals require community involvement in choice of the appraisal methodology, programme, indicators, targets and options. This involvement is meant to run alongside he development of issues and options in development plan documents. The Draft SCI does not appear to provide for this.
Preparation of plan document for submission (stages 4 & 5)
5.50. As a means of continuing the involvement of the public in the process of submitting a development plan to the Secretary of State, the Draft SCI proposes two methods:
(a) Responding to or meeting those who made representations with an analysis of how the representations affect the policies and proposals in the plan.
(b) Inviting public comment over a six week period.
5.51. We have no comments at this stage. We may have comments at a later stage.
Independent examination (steps 7 & 8)
5.52. We have no comments on this at this stage. We may have comments at a later stage.
Supplementary Planning Documents (steps 1 through to 4)
5.53. Our experience is that, with exceptions such as SPD3 (Redcliffe) and SPD (Tall Buildings), there has been little or no community involvement in establishing the need for or the partners required for the thirteen Supplementary Planning Documents listed on page 24 as being part of the Local Development Framework. The methods of involvement listed in Table B item 1 column 4 are, in our view, inadequately specified to enable front loading.
5.54. Equally in our view the methods proposed in Table B item 2 on page 17 are inadequately specified to enable effective involvement in plan preparation. The involvement process used in Redcliffe, as an example of an area plan; and the involvement process used for the Tall Buildings policy, as an example of a subject plan, have both been successful in enabling involvement. Those methods should be used as starting points for future area and subject SPD’s and DPD’s.
5.55. Therefore:
· We seek to change the SCI
· In our view the SCI fails to pass this test because the methods of involvement in both DPD’s and SPD’s in pre-production scoping are not adequate. Neither is it clear how the community will effectively be involved in considering options for DPD’s and SPD’s.
· The change we seek is:
(a) To propose a forum in which the community can be involved in the choice of types, subjects, areas and scope of DPD’s and SPD’s.
(b) To set out specific methods for area SPD’s and DPD’s using the Redcliffe involvement methods as a starting point and for subject SPD’s and DPD’s using Tall Buildings involvement methods as the starting point.
5.56. Test 7: Show whether and how the results of community involvement will be fed into the preparation of development plan documents and supplementary planning documents (Paragraph 2.10 table B column 5)
5.57. We understand that it is a key requirement of the Government reforms of the planning process that the community should be able to see and understand, from feedback, how far the visions, views, ideas and choices put forward during the community involvement process have resulted in change to and become a part of the particular development plan document that is either submitted to the Secretary of State or submitted for adoption.
5.58. For DPD’s the results of involvement are clearly fed into the reporting to the Secretary of State. For SPD’s the process is less transparent. There should be some standard method for the public to verify and register how far the plan being put forward for adoption accurately reflects views put forward during the plan preparation process.
5.59. Therefore:
· We seek to give conditional support to the SCI
· In our view the SCI fails to pass this test completely because of the lack of a clear method for the community to verify and register how far a plan put forward for adoption reflects the views of the community.
· The change we seek is a clear provision for this step.
5.60. Test 8: Clearly describe the authority’s policy for consultation on planning applications (Paragraph 3.7 through to 3.16)
5.61. We understand that the Government intention is that the process by which site development proposals are created and planning applications determined, should also provide for the same key ingredients of community involvement that apply to the production of Development Plan Documents (community confidence; front loading; choice of options; continuous involvement and feedback).
5.62. The Consultation Draft SCI proposes that, beyond the minimum regulatory requirements to notify adjoining owners (paragraph 3.7) and some very welcome measures to inform the wider public of applications being made (paragraph 3.8), the main method to achieve effective community involvement will be to “encourage” applicants themselves to undertake pre-application consultation.
5.63. Our experience is that, in practice, this does not produce effective community involvement.
5.64. Where “consultation managers” , “facilitators” are employed by the applicant, this method of involvement runs into the same problems that are detailed in section 4.39. above. We repeat the barriers to effective involvement here:
· Involvement tends not to begin until a developer has been appointed and definitive plans made. This is not “front loading”.
· “Involvement” has tended to amount simply to the supply of information on progress by the developer.
· The professional “facilitators” employed by the developer often arrive with the developer’s sole agenda and have on occasion refused to alter the agenda to include community items.
· Community involvement is often limited to defining abstract “aspirations” with the question of which aspiration is feasible or will be implemented being kept within the control of professionals or consultants who “know best”.
· The record of community views is open to manipulation.
· Community views can be accepted or ignored in an arbitrary way.
· Technical expertise is used generally to justify only one option rather than explore more than one option.
· Consultation may be repeated with long time intervals until community fatigue secures the “right” pre-determined view.
· Workshops are usually held as one-off or infrequent events with changing membership. This is not “continuous involvement”.
· Little change is made to original plans as a direct result of consultees view
5.65. In our view it is wholly unrealistic and unreasonable to expect the promoter of a private scheme to ensure effective front loading of involvement, an unbiased discussion of options and an unbiased revision of the scheme to reflect community views. In effect, the Draft SCI is expecting applicants and developers to act as an unpaid planning authority.
5.66. This strategy for community involvement in planning applications also runs counter to the fundamental plan-led approach to development control that the Government has reaffirmed in the reform of the planning system.
5.67. Meanwhile, it is also our experience that community involvement run by applicants can only be effective when the community is able to see and understand the wider area plan and area policy context in which the application is taking place. This gives the benchmark for judgement on the merits or otherwise of the proposal.
5.68. One of the lessons of the BCC/Community Partnership in Redcliffe is that the creation of a local framework for development at the neighbourhood level enables the community to understand and come to a consensus on how the ad hoc development of particular sites can make a positive contribution to the creation of their economic, social and physical environment.
5.69. What is needed therefore is first, a set of involvement “ground rules” laid down by the local authority that private and public sector developers are required to follow in pre-application involvement. The City Council’s own Select Committee has called for this. Second, encouragement for the formation of local community forums, again with a set of “ground rules”, to enable the community to be effectively involved as a continuous process of front loading of views, exploration of options and the formation of policy and plans. Existing community initiatives such as Redcliffe Futures is a model for this and the City Council’s work on a “toolkit” for community involvement in plan making, is potentially a way forward.
5.70. Therefore:
· We seek to change the SCI.
· The SCI fails to pass this particular test because although the proposed policy is clearly described, that policy does not enable effective involvement. In our view the SCI should be supplemented by the addition of methods of informing the public about applications and the encouragement to applicants to involve the public.
· The change we seek is:
(a) To make clear to applicants that the local planning authority expects, not merely “encourages”, applicants to involve the community in considering proposals at the inception stage (front loading) before options are closed and thereafter through the development of the application.
(b) To publish “ground rules” or quality standards for involvement in pre-application involvement, to be agreed as a compact between the community and the City Council, with which planning applicants will be expected to comply.
(b) To proactively assist community groups to produce their own view of both city-wide policy and local neighbourhood plans that form the context in which planning applications can be judged.
5.71. Test 9: The statement identifies in general terms which local community groups and other bodies will be consulted (Table E page 23 and Appendix C page 26)
5.72. Table E and paragraph 3.15 on page 23 proposes a number of organisations that planning applicants should utilize in order to “ ensure that those sections of the community traditionally not involved in planning issues have the opportunity to do so”.
5.73. Given the long track record of the Civic Society in campaigning on behalf of a broad body of public opinion, including direct contact with local community groups, the Society should be regarded as an independent contact organisation useful to planning applicants and other community groups.
5.74. Therefore:
· We seek to change the SCI
· In our view the SCI fails to pass this test completely because Table E is incomplete.
· The change we seek is to add the Civic Society to the list of contact organisations both for planning applicants (Table E) and as a consultation body (Appendix C)
©Bristol Civic Society 19 October 2005