Listening and acting on local views on neighbourhoods would be more useful than inventing more systems, says Eleanor Young
A community-minded person set up our street’s group chat in the first lockdown. Now it communicates snow-clearing parties at the grit bin, old jigsaws are swapped and plumbers recommended. Characters emerge: the bird spotter, the evangelist, the activist.
If there was to be a street vote the activist would lead the charge. She knows the rules, the soil, the local councillor is Mandy to her. I don’t know if Michael Gove had her in mind when he put street votes into the levelling up and regeneration legislation. I ponder this as the consultation on street vote development orders closes, with its tantalising question of whether only voters in the ‘street area’ can put forward a development order. If so it would need a minimum 20% of those voters.
How often does 20% of a population put in comments on a planning application, let alone get involved in consultations for their area? I imagine this hugely devolved process coming down to door knocking by activists, like collecting for charity but with more explanation and persuasion.
On the upside I am reminded of architects Patrick Theis' and Soraya Kahn ’s initiative on their 19th century east London estate to apply for a standard design licence for houses to extend upwards so neighbours with growing families could stay put rather than have to move out for more space. It was a brilliant plan for those with capital and the patience and energy for rooftop extension – though it took 10 years and then the local authority asked for applications by six houses at a time or preferably the whole street. Theis and Kahn themselves moved out. Perhaps, for terraces at least, this development issue has been dealt with by the embrace of extending upwards (particularly with Create Street’s favourite, the mansard roof) in the revised National Planning Policy Framework.
How often does 20% of a population put in comments on a planning application, let alone get involved in consultations for their area?
On the downside I think of the huge three-year effort put into a neighbourhood plan by a group of Essex locals that was rejected at the last hurdle by the planning inspector. The village character they sought to keep has been destroyed, with historic hedges rooted out and pedestrians pushed onto tarmac paths as more traffic to bland new homes made the old lanes impossible to walk. Should they have pooled financial resources and paid a lead individual – ‘someone with expertise in preparing development proposals such as an architect’ – to put it together as the street votes consultation suggests. Would it have been bulletproof?
There is already a democratic mediation process for development: it is our planning system, problematic though it can be. Putting it into the hands of The People should be exciting but more often is the recipe for disillusionment. The Liberal Democrats want ‘more democratic engagement in Local Plans’ while Labour has promised an ‘immediate blitz’ on planning reform if elected, with the choice on whether to deliver houses (in particular) removed but giving communities voice on the ‘how’. Please politicians, stop with the invention and resource the system and engagement by plan makers, so it works better.
In the meantime, jigsaw anyone?