Planning and Participation

Paul O'Hare

• Publisher: Lund Humphries
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781848224308
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Why should the public participate in planning? And who are the stakeholders who are required to participate in the planning process? This guide assesses public and stakeholder participation in the planning process, which is a statutory requirement across the entire scope and scale of planning activities in many global contexts. It provides a historical overview of participation and outlines how this has evolved over time. It then outlines a series of key issues for the contemporary planning professional in terms of their approach to public and stakeholder participation, particularly in light of alterations in landscapes of governance and recent social, political, and technological developments. Illustrated with mostly UK and European case studies, but also drawing insights from further afield, the book also provides a framework for critiquing contemporary participation, including an assessment of the pitfalls, obstacles, and unintended consequences of participation efforts. As such, it identifies key principles for participation and asks critical questions for its assessment.

Chapter 1

The Problem with Participation

Introduction

‘The idea of citizen participation is a little like eating spinach: no one is against it in principle because it is good for you. Participation of the governed in their government is, in theory, the cornerstone of democracy – a revered idea that is vigorously applauded by virtually everyone.’

(Arnstein, 1969, p.216)

In 1969, Sherry Arnstein used these words to open an article that would become one of the most widely read, and certainly one of the most cited, to emerge from the discipline of planning. But despite the genteel tone invocated in her opening sentences, Arnstein’s article poked a rather sharp stick at planners, particularly regarding how they perceived and treated the people whose interests they claimed to serve.

The paper was written at a time of growing concern that bureaucratic and political elites had lost touch with the societies for whom they planned. Until this time, conventional wisdom dictated that planning was something that was done to or done for – but only rarely done with – people. But Arnstein’s critique goes further, suggesting that participation was often a charade, potentially even an outright effort to manipulate decision-making in favour of those she referred to as the already ‘haves’ in society.

Today, half a century since its publication, Arnstein’s article has lost none of its potency. It may well be essential reading for students of planning, but there is little doubt that it also makes for uncomfortable reading for anyone with an interest in participation and planning – be they practising planners, policy- and decision-makers, or members of the public grappling with their own struggles with the planning system. The concerns raised so passionately by Arnstein, and the many thousands subsequently citing her work, continue to vex planners who have long wrestled with issues regarding both the conceptualisation and practical implementation of participation. At the same time, participants often report that participatory initiatives leave them feeling not empowered but ignored and marginalised.

Spinach, it would seem, may not be to everyone’s taste.

What is the problem with participation? Why does public participation leave so many of us – professionals and the public alike – frustrated and maybe even a little despondent? And where participation does seem to ‘work’, can we learn anything that might help us create more effective modes of participation?

Participation – the right thing to do

The case for the engagement of the public in decision-making is compelling. Public participation initiatives boldly claim to make bureaucratic and administrative procedures more sensitive to the needs of those subjected to decisions. It can also democratise planning, assisting public authorities in claiming they are acting with authority and legitimacy.

The democratic right of citizens to participate in governance is enshrined in Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states: ‘Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.’ Similarly, the ‘Aarhus Convention’ (the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters) guarantees public access to environmental information and participation in decisions that affect their environment.

Although the terminology and nomenclature have varied over the years and across institutional and national contexts, there has been a discernible shift in the balance of power in decision-making away from central governments to local authorities and beyond to neighbourhoods, communities and individuals. Consequently, in many parts of the world, across many issues, the public are not just subject to governance, but – to greater or lesser degrees – are agents of governance.

Planning is no exception. Successive initiatives have embedded participation across the entire scope of planning activity at multiple spatial scales. Participation is, it could be argued, particularly vital to spatial planning, given how that specific sector of public decision-making has such a pervasive influence on so many aspects of our lives. Who decides the form of the city is vital to how that place functions, and ultimately, for whom a place is for.

Consequently, the notion of public participation is a recurring theme across an array of planning policy documents and governance and decision-making initiatives. Yet the extent to which participation represents an actual shift in power is open to discussion. Participation might involve the relatively discrete activity of seeking comments on the details of a proposed development’s design, through to much more ambitious efforts to collaborate on co-produced planning interventions. What has emerged is a complex web of formal participation processes, from large-scale consultations on national policy, to near-neighbour consultation processes whereby homeowners apply for permission for relatively minor household alterations.

Planners can sometimes seem preoccupied with participation: ‘is there enough, is it the right sort, has sufficient account been taken of it?’ (Rydin, 1999, p.84). Organising, executing and making sense of public participation initiatives is something of an industry for the profession – quite literally in some instances, given the increased role for planning consultancies and even public relations companies in what was once the rather mundane and technocratic practice of providing public information. Yet, despite its criticality to the process of planning and an immense effort to promote formal stakeholder and public engagement, participation often falls short of the expectations of all those involved.

The challenges for participation are explored in detail throughout this book. Perhaps, however, the fundamental issue with participation derives from the contrasting rationales and expectations that the various actors and stakeholders take into participation interactions. It is to this issue, and the implications for the professional planner, that we now turn.

The apathetic and apoplectic public

The onus of the statutory, legal and moral obligations for planners to actively consult with stakeholders and the wider public on the professional role of planners cannot be understated. Public participation is integral to the job description of planning officers of all shades, whether they work in development control, policy formulation or outside the state apparatus in consultancies or for developers.

In England, local authorities consult across two generic types of stakeholders:

• General consultation bodies. These include community and voluntary groups, faith groups, groups that represent a specific demographic race or ethnicity, or businesses, trade bodies or other interest groups.
• Specific consultation bodies. These include statutory consultees with whom planners have an obligation to consult across a range of defined issues, including environmental regulatory bodies, highways and other infrastructure agencies.

Discharging these duties consumes a considerable proportion of many planners’ working lives, though the extent it leads to job satisfaction is rather more debatable. The challenges are manifold. For a start, there are the logistical difficulties of designing and implementing inclusive participatory initiatives. Set amongst the other pressures on over-worked planning departments, participation is labour-intensive and expensive to properly resource, particularly over a sustained period. At the same time, it can be difficult to see the appeal of participation to the wider public who may at times appear indifferent to planning issues and detached from the efforts of planners to encourage participation. Drumming up any public engagement in some issues can be deeply frustrating for the conscientious professional planner. The public can often be considered as simply ‘too hard to reach’, a term returned to later in the book. But even if there is local interest, aspects of planning – particularly policy-orientated initiatives – can be abstract and aloof; even a little dull.

Planning is technically complex and jargon-laden, requiring a significant effort to fully grasp the nuances of large-scale planning applications or policy proposals. It follows, therefore, that any effort to engage seriously in the planning decision-making process requires an immense commitment by interested parties. There is a further concern that those who participate are either drawn from the same narrow cross-section of the wider community, or indeed are the same few individuals that routinely turn up to participatory events. These latter individuals are often referred to, not entirely charitably, as the ‘usual suspects’. We must, therefore, be mindful that even when there are willing participants, they are not necessarily representative of a wider population.

I have spent a substantial proportion of my professional life in draughty community centres at participation events that have attracted only a handful of interested members of the public. Toward the end of a recent public meeting event run by my local parish council, parish councillors asked the solitary member of the public remaining after two hours if they were interested in any particular items on the agenda. She responded that her interest had been discussed much earlier but she had taken pity on the councillors and didn’t want them to feel that they were just talking to themselves. On another occasion, at an event to discuss plans for the reuse of a redundant town hall building, a group of three planners armed with plans, proposals and sticky notes became rather excited by a sudden influx of a gaggle of people. The planners’ excitement abated when it became apparent that the prospective participants were, in fact, looking for the room that their bridge club had been relocated to that week. At the invitation of the planners, they showed a polite but clearly superficial interest in the event. They left soon afterwards, though not before raiding the stash of biscuits that had been provided by the planning department in those pre-austerity days. To add insult to injury, a child later helped herself to most of their sticky notes. However, she did at least comment on the plans for the old town hall, although it’s fair to say that the local authority had rather more...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by Graham Haughton
• Preface
• Chapter 1 The Problem with Participation
• Chapter 2 The Scale and Scope of Public Participation
• Chapter 3 The Public Interest and the Interested Public: Who Participates in Planning?
• Chapter 4 Seizing the Right to Participate
• Chapter 5 Typologies and Types of Participation and Stakeholder Engagement
• Chapter 6 The Authenticity of Participation
• A Few Final Words …
• Notes
• References