Rhion Jones’ observations on this year’s Waterfront Conference

One of the joys of June for me is being invited to chair the Annual Waterfront Conference on Consultation and Stakeholder engagement in the Infrastructure and Planning sector. Those attending come from major consultancies, developers and planners in road, rail, airports and energy – mostly pretty clued-up and easily fascinated by technical details of the 2008 Planning Act and other enactments!

What struck me about this event was the emerging focus on communities and the need to work more closely with them. Typical was Julie King of High Speed Two who began her presentation talking about a hairdresser in a London street adjacent to Euston and probably affected by the enormous building project that will create the HS2’s southern terminus. Like other small-business owners affected by major projects in this and other parts of the country, her fears, anxieties – and, yes, opportunities can best be addressed through dialogue and best practice requires major infrastructure developers to invest in such long-term engagement.

This was echoed by Ruth Shepherd, an Institute Associate with massive experience of planning. She covered several case studies, demonstrating how challenging it can be when communities are not convinced of the benefits of proposed developments. Forcing decisions through without winning over hearts and minds can be a recipe for long-term problems and serious dissent. In practice technology is giving us better tools to measure and monitor community sentiment. Mike Saunders of Commonplace delivers such solutions and illustrated heat maps showing community priorities. Applying local intelligence can be critical in the implementation phase, and John Morris drew on his experience with Birmingham Airport to describe how to manage sensitive issues.

We should always look further afield for best practice. Tim Holmes divides his time between the UK and Melbourne, Australia and described community involvement in railway projects. He reminded us that community involvement is as important during the construction phase as in when consulting on the original design and on taking the decisions to proceed.

Ultimately, as Liz Dunn of Burges Salmon reminded everyone, the statutory framework for infrastructure projects is genuinely demanding and project promoters have no choice but to invest in the skills and know-how of public engagement and consultation. She was critical of recent changes to the consent regime in Wales insofar as it requires there to be a full consultation on the ‘draft’ application at pre-consultation stage. This seriously limits the scope to make changes in response to community concerns.

So the theme of communities returns time and again. It was Julie King who provided the most memorable image by stressing how trust is key and how individuals like her hairdresser example only participate in dialogue with large concerns like HS2 if, despite size and perceived remoteness, they can be shown to keep all their promises. For many developers with a steady of turnover of staff and changes of sub-contractors, it can be an immense challenge. Well worth a day at this annual event.