Why Participation?
Sustainable development is not just about avoiding pollution, achieving the best development layout, or designing the greenest house.
| The participation and support of local people is crucial to achieving sustainable development and promoting equal opportunities.
The challenge is to produce a development that meets the needs of the local community and has their support.
National guidance on sustainability reflects a move from 'top down' approaches to those focusing on local action, participation and stakeholder involvement in all aspects of the development process. | |
This does not mean that everybody has to participate in everything. Nor does participation necessarily ensure social inclusion or equitable outcomes.
All local authorities now have to consider sustainable development when they undertake Best Value reviews of their services. They also have to promote the environmental, economic and social well-being of their area, and work together with different agencies and local communities to formulate a Local Strategic Partnership and develop a community strategy to contribute towards sustainable development.
| This section describes some of the ways in which local people can be encouraged to become involved and participate in the development process. | |
Adopting the Right Technique
Adopt the right techniques to suit local circumstances. The ideas listed below are a guide to some possibilities for involving local people. Even if your development is a small site for two or three houses, some of this will still apply.
Positive and Early Dialogue
Local people need to be kept informed, and they should be involved in small as well as large development proposals right from the start of the process. Their interest and views can be stimulated in a number of ways. For smaller developments, these need not be costly, complicated or an open forum for protestors:
- Talk informally to local people about their ideas and gain their support
- Attend local community meetings to explain your ideas - contact the secretaries or leaders of local groups and Parish Councils to arrange attendance at a meeting to talk about your project
- Consider holding a public meeting in a local building - contact the caretaker of the village hall or community building and arrange a time and day that will enable the majority of interested people to attend.
Advertise it well in advance with posters around the local area and on the building itself. Understand who the audience is and keep the explanation short and simple.
Larger developments may need an independent person to chair the meeting. (The 'Creating Involvement' reference provides practical advice on planning and holding public meetings)
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- Design and distribute an information leaflet - keep it short and simple explaining who you are (with a contact number), where the proposal is for, what the development will be used for and look like (with images if possible), and its effect on the local area. Invite feedback posting the leaflets through the doors of all people in the local area; you could distribute them yourself or get local people involved
- Have an Open Day - show people the plans and around the site itself
- Put up a display board - make it attractive, interesting to look at and clear, highlight the issues that are of concern to the target audience, and provide a contact number
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- Run local surveys or questionnaires - useful where there are several options, or where there are local concerns. These can be carried out as door to door interviews or by post and may be undertaken by the community or consultants. ('Creating Involvement' provides practical advice on designing and undertaking surveys and questionnaires)
Techniques for Large Developments
For larger developments, the need to explain, inform and discuss is especially important. If the scheme is to be sustainable it needs to be fully integrated within its host community. Developers might consider some of the following techniques:
- 'Planning for Real' and Planning Days: A number of developers have worked in partnership with local authorities and communities to use 'Planning for Real' and Planning Days as a way of intensively exploring urban design and development issues for larger development areas. These usually involve exhibitions of drawings and models, workshops and opportunities to help develop proposals.
- Urban Design Charrettes: Urban design charrettes are intensive community-based design workshops run by skilled facilitators / designers and focusing on particular development proposals.
These are usually held over a few days to a week. During that time all the stakeholders in the development process work closely together, to develop an urban design brief. It can involve existing and incoming residents, planners, architects, designers, developers, interest groups and invited specialists. Not yet widely used in the UK, there is potential to develop the use of the charrette process to improve sustainable urban design and development outcomes in the North East.
Supporting Community-based Solutions:
Communities may want to initiate development themselves. This is social sustainability in action - it is not easy, but there are some ideas and structures, which can help it to happen.
- Self Build Projects: Some regional examples of participation relate to building and construction that has been initiated by the community. Self-build projects often seek to innovate and can provide valuable examples of what may be achievable.
- Community Development Trusts: Community Development Trusts have been used across the United Kingdom as a way of organising locally-based affordable development proposals, often housing related. Setting up a local Trust - which is a not-for-profit organisation with charitable objectives, but which can nonetheless trade and turn over quite large sums - can help create a vehicle for the communities to carry out development, try out innovative sustainable design, run its housing, manage local amenities, or help finance local activity. A local group who are thinking of doing this should contact the Development Trusts Association or the Charities Commission.
- Village Design Statements and Appraisals: In the special case of communities in the countryside, the concept of design statements and appraisals has been developed to help define and protect village character. Village design statements can have a sustainable development perspective built into them. They are particularly effective when they are developed, researched and written by local people, when they represent village views as a whole, and when they involve a wide section of the village community in their production. They can provide a valuable source of information and guidance to the developer about what local people like and dislike about proposed new development in their local environment, and will therefore help shape acceptable planning applications.
- Place Check - Urban Design Alliance: This is similar to village design statements. Local communities assess the quality of their own settlement and formulate plans of action.
Widening the Debate: Good Information, Communication and Learning
| People's understanding of sustainable development, and their involvement in it, is about much more than individual development proposals.
A number of initiatives in the North East, particularly Local Agenda 21, are helping to widen the debate, encourage knowledge and understanding, and provide information. | |
Learning About Sustainability
The development process raises opportunities to advance skills and training in sustainability issues for all. The Local Agenda 21 process however provides the widest opportunities for broadening out knowledge, understanding and skills in relation to sustainable development issues and practice.
Most local authorities in the region are supporting Local Agenda 21 initiatives in their areas.
| The County Durham LA21 Partnership, one of the most successful processes, distributes 'Partnership News', highlighting recent sustainable development news, activities, events, milestones and sustainability information sources including web sites.
'Partnership News' has been used as a coversheet to distribute key sustainability publications including 'Sustainable Communities in County Durham' which highlights 34 practical actions that any local community can undertake to become more sustainable. | |
Sustainability Partnerships and Forums
Sustainable Development Partnerships: Effective partnerships reflect the priorities of local people rather than being externally imposed. Local Agenda 21 (LA21) partnerships are one way to define sustainable development objectives at local level and to establish regionally based networks centred on citizen involvement. Many developers are already involved, as they are a good point of contact to identify sustainability issues in the development process and to work together towards more sustainable development solutions.
The County Durham LA21 Partnership produces a useful set of factsheets about meeting community needs, including how to encourage local involvement and participation.
Community Forums: Community Forums of various kinds have become increasingly associated with regeneration projects through the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB). They have tended to concentrate on social exclusion and poverty issues rather than sustainable development but in some cases have been reshaped to pursue broader sustainable development initiatives, especially as part of the redevelopment of declining areas. They can be a particularly good way to involve young people in the sustainable development process, a group traditionally very hard to engage.
Local access and disability groups: It is advisable to consult with these groups if there is one representing the area, to ensure that development is accessible to all.
Rules of Thumb
Sources of Info
Case Studies
