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Perspectives on Getting the Region Involved in its Spatial Strategy

Graeme Sherriff, September 2009

As part of the Centre for Urban Policy Studies at the University of Manchester, I've recently completed a survey of stakeholder involvement in the formation of the current Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) for the North West. The study reveals a number of frustrations and implies that the quality of stakeholder experience is influenced by organisational status, location, sector, technological literacy and relationships with the relevant planning authorities. The types of stakeholders who seem to present the greatest challenge in terms of outreach and involvement would appear, perhaps unsurprisingly to be, individual members of the public and smaller organisations, dependent on volunteer time and energy, with relatively little resources. These constraints will not be unfamiliar to many of the organisations which are supportive of the North West TAR, so I thought it would be useful to reflect on some of the findings here. I won't go through the detail of the report, you can download that from the Centre for Urban Policy Studies website, but I will start with a quick overview of the research.

The RSS in the Regional Planning context

The RSS - which includes the Regional Transport Strategy - succeeded Regional Planning Guidance (RPG) and became a statutory part of the planning system following the enactment of the Planning and Compulsory Purchases Bill. As part of the relatively new 'spatial planning', an RSS should better involve stakeholders at all stages of policy formation and replace the former 'land use' plans with a 'spatial vision' of the region. The Regional Assemblies (in our case the North West Regional Assembly) led in the formation of the plans. The NWRA has since been abolished and become 4NW, the Leaders Forum.

A new single integrated regional strategy, combining the former RSS and the Regional Economic Strategy, is now being developed in each region. In the north west, 4NW and the North West Development Agency (NWDA) are leading the way and are already at the 'Principles and Issues' stage of what is being called: Regional Strategy 2010 (RS2010). It is described by 4NW and the NWDA as 'a unique opportunity to bring together the spatial, economic, social and environmental strategies and build a new long-term vision for the region.' (4NW website). The NW TAR has already inputted into the early stage consultation process for this - see the consultations page. The fact that the North West is preparing another plan hot on the heels of the RSS, far from making our research redundant, means that learning the lessons on stakeholder involvement at the regional level is as important as ever.

About the North West RSS consultation

Consultation on the current North West RSS began in Autumn 2004 with a period of preparation, development of issues and discussions with key stakeholders. During 2005, informal consultations on options for the key strategic elements of the RSS and on the interim draft of the RSS took place and in 2006 a draft of the strategy was submitted to Government and presented for formal consultation. Once comments were in, the Examination in Public (EiP) was set up. This discussed pertinent issues and the EiP panel submitted their report to the Secretary of State. In March 2008 the Secretary of State's proposed changes were published and the final RSS was launched in September 2008. A partial review process is currently underway, running simultaneously with the evolution of the new strategy but only examining a few key issues.

Our Research

Our research consisted of a questionnaire, followed by interviews. The questionnaires were sent out after the close of the Examination in Public (EiP) and after the publication of the panel report, 8th May 2007. Given its focus on the procedure, rather than the outcomes of the RSS, this was useful: participants would not yet know the outcome of the process and this would therefore not colour their views on the process.

The survey was sent to a database of 2618 addresses, which were obtained from the NWRA in hard copy form. 182 of the people and organisations on this database had responded to the NWRA's consultation, and 102 of them responded to our questionnaire. We received responses not only from people who had taken part in the NWRA's consultation, but also those who had not. We found it useful in our analysis to separate these groups into consultees (41% of our respondents) and non-consultees (59% of our respondents), the latter having taken part in our survey, but not in any of the consultations involved in formulating the RSS. This split is particularly useful in highlighting the potential reasons for non-participation in the consultation.

Overall Picture

On the whole, the mixture of workshops and discussion groups, website forms and more conventional written responses, that formed the process leading to the creation of the RSS, appear to be well received. However, some of our respondents had specific issues and experiences with these various consultation mechanisms, which should inform future stakeholder involvement and consultation work. We asked respondents to self-define themselves as one of the following categories:

(click on image to see larger version)

Quantitative questions on overall satisfaction suggest some participants were very satisfied with the process, whereas a large minority were dissatisfied. The relatively low number of responses make a detailed breakdown difficult, but it is clear that, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is the parish councils, local neighbourhood groups and environmental groups who were most likely to report being dissatisfied overall. The respondents most likely to report being satisfied overall were local planning authorities and larger organisations which were already involved in some way in the planning system. Many of the smaller organisations were in the non-consultee group and therefore did not answer all the questions. Their qualitative answers, which in the main expressed dissatisfaction, must therefore be accounted for in addition to the quantitative answers: this implies that there was a significant amount of dissatisfaction with the process.

'What is the RSS? How can we take part?'

Some respondents, particularly the smaller groups, were unaware of the opportunities to take part:

I have no idea what you are talking about in this document.

I have not met anyone who knows what an RSS is.

Reading a short reference to just one aspect of the proposals in a short newspaper item does not seem an appropriate way to find out about proposed long-term strategies to be involved.

'Is it relevant to us?'

There was also a question of perceptions of relevance, with some respondents thinking it did not apply to them:

We cover a small rural parish of about 1,200 - does this survey apply to such an organisation?

The title 'Regional Spatial Strategy' is not informative and does not invoke enthusiasm.

These comments would suggest that a more extensive outreach programme would be required if these organisations are to be effectively involved.

'How will we find the time and resources?'

Taking part in a regional consultation can take significant resources. These comments were not atypical of the smaller groups, which found that the process was very demanding in terms of resources:

Insufficient resources to deal with this sort of issue. We are a very small parish council of 8 members who meet 6 times a year.

Non-professional groups such as ours are not geared up to participate fully. Yet our views are more valid than 'establishment' planning professionals as we have better evidence and first hand knowledge of the effect of policies.

Additional support, then, may need to be provided to smaller, more modestly-resourced groups. It seems also that information could be presented in a way that makes it more accessible:

Because they have better things to do, none of the Councillors would wish to absorb a 120-page document (let alone the three other main documents...) unless it was relevant, illuminating, concise and clear. The RSS is none of these things.

'How will we know what applies to us?'

This presents a challenge to those organising consultations: can the necessary information be presented in a way that makes it accessible to all? One suggestion received was that there could be an index for each area of the region so that small local groups can see which of the policies would affect them. This is potentially impossible though, considering that the RSS, particularly at consultation stage, will include broad-brush policies, transport corridors and development areas; meaning that the local implications of specific policies may not be known. It is clear that it is not only the inexperienced who have difficulty:

As an individual who has an interest in planning environmental issues locally, who has some experience of reading documents of this kind, I still found the document very hard going.

A transport planner we spoke to pointed out that, whilst some effort had been made to label policies relating to transport, there seemed to be no consistent criteria against which this label was applied. So, for example, there were some policies that this transport planner considered to be transport-related, but they had not been labelled. Such approaches, when done well, could be very useful ways of making the document clearer to people: some might approach the document from a thematic angle (transport, waste, housing...) and some from a geographical angle (Manchester, Liverpool, Preston...) and labels could reflect these different interest areas.

'Can we engage with that issue?'

There is, however, a risk that too much categorisation can lead to 'silo thinking' within the process. Several interviewees had experienced this. Where organisations had been placed into thematic discussion groups, this made it difficult for them to raise issues that were not considered to be directly part of their theme. For example, the Environment Agency wanted to engage in discussions on housing and transport but found that they had 'meetings allegedly called environment and landscape where none of this was mentioned', instead the meetings focussed on biodiversity, flood risk, water resources, water quality and air quality.

An interviewee working on transport issues had similar experiences:

When we went to the transport people and said to them 'why's that policy there?'... they said 'we don't know, the planners did that'... There's a theme running through that of a certain [group] of people sitting in silos saying 'you're job is to do transport, our job is to do this...'

This resulted, this interviewee felt, in a plan that was 'fairly obvious[ly] written by different people', making it more difficult for the reader to comprehend: 'you should have the same general criteria, but it differs; sometimes by not very much, but it differs.'

'Do we have enough evidence?'

The emphasis on evidence-based policy is a feature of the recent planning reforms, with a much stronger emphasis on being informed on the effect of policy. Whilst in theory producing policy that is better informed, in practice this can be a burden for participants, particularly those with little time and resources for research. A cycling campaigner, for example, expressed frustration at the requirement to produce evidence to back up everything. Not only was this a drain on time and resources, which volunteers do not necessarily have, but he found it very difficult when proposing relatively new ideas, for which there is not already an established evidence base. This did not put this respondent off inputting, but there may be others who were less confident.

A related issue is the exposure, in Internet consultation forums, to the responses of other respondents. These are potentially off-putting if they reflect a level of professionalism and knowledge that some respondents feel they cannot match. One respondent, on viewing the responses of others commented that 'they seemed to have the background'. This could of course work the other way round, in that people may find useful information and links in the responses of others, but it is worrying that seeing the responses of others could result in potential respondents feeling that 'it's not for me':

I do remember noting that many of the consultees and 'stakeholders' who had responded were representatives of (for want of a better term) corporate organisations of various kinds. The number of individuals, like myself, who had shown any interest appeared to be very small. This raises the question of how the "little man", as opposed to the big organisations, is supposed to gain access to strategies of this kind, which have long-term implications for the areas in which he lives, and which are determined at a level he can neither access nor understand.

Given the common assumption that Internet consultation is the holy grail of accessibility, these observations are illuminating and pose a challenge to those seeking to carry out inclusive consultation.

Conclusions

Clearly, there are some significant barriers to being involved in consultations at the regional level, and work needs to be done to overcome these in future consultations. The research suggests, however, that there may be issues that are more systemic. That is, they are not simply operational issues that require the authorities to try a bit harder, rather they are fundamental to consultations on issues that are regional and long term.

Where groups have a primarily local focus, there are some things (such as the index of localities) that can be done to help them identify policies likely to affect them, but these do not overcome the fact that the policies in a RSS are intrinsically regional or sub-regional in nature: i.e. the local implications will not necessarily be clear. Additionally, many community groups will have high turnovers of membership, making it very difficult to engage on policy issues that will impact them over 5 to 20 years.

This is particularly problematic in light of the importance based on front-loading, as expressed in Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 11. It is in the early stages that issues are likely to be at their most strategic and broad-brush, therefore making the identification of local implications difficult, if not impossible. It will be difficult to engage groups and individuals with a local focus, because it is not known if the strategy will affect their area. Later in the process these groups may find themselves reacting against something that the RSS has paved the way for, but that they were unable to anticipate.

Similarly, whilst few would argue that the RSS should not be founded on strong evidence, the burden of producing evidence to back up representations may be too much of a burden for certain groups. And, whilst it is important to try to package information about regional issues in a way that is accessible to all, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that there is a level of complexity, and an amount of information that needs to be communicated, that suggests that engaging at the regional level will always be a resource intensive activity.

This conclusion is not necessarily a comfortable one, since it casts doubt on the possibility of developing a spatial vision of a region that is 'owned' by the region. This is important not only because participation is a positive thing, but because a spatial strategy that reflects the concerns of the region and is owned by its people is more likely to be politically acceptable and implemented with enthusiasm at all levels of Government. It is important that the lessons from studies such as this one are learned and acted upon. We should not give up on improving our democratic processes and working towards a system of participation in planning in which all who want to can have their say. To pretend that participation has been inclusive, meaningful and has resulted in a shared regional vision when it has not means, at best, that time has been wasted and, at worse, that the vision we do have will fail and that stakeholders will become increasingly disillusioned with planning.