Getting engagement from objectors to infrastructure projects

Angus Walker picture-13This entry reflects on engaging opponents of infrastructure projects before and during examinations.

Coming fresh from a series of hearings into an application under the Planning Act 2008, one theme that has emerged is that of the difficulty of engaging with objectors to projects. The issue of local engagement is one of the five principal topics that form part of the 2014 review of the Planning Act regime, so it is timely to consider this issue.

At the early stages, objectors (and I mean those who do not want the project to go ahead at all) understandably tend to express their criticisms of the project and reasons why it should not proceed, rather than offering suggestions about how, if it is to go ahead, it could be better. Often, it is only once the examination is under way that they start to engage more constructively on how to minimise the adverse impacts of the project on themselves and others.

Although project promoters may be willing to make changes where possible, it is often too late to do so, particularly if it means alterations to the land that needs to be acquired or occupied. Even if changes are able to be made, promoters may be wary of giving the impression that the project is in a state of flux, which refusing to make any changes would avoid. I'm not saying that promoters are blameless when it comes to lack of pre- (or post-) application engagement, but I'm focusing on objectors at the moment.

I can think of three reasons for this. One is that objectors often have very limited resources and cannot afford to spend the time, effort and possibly money on objecting to a project as well as suggesting ways in which it might be improved if it went ahead. Since the first of these is their primary objective, that is quite naturally where their efforts will be concentrated.

Secondly, if the objectors are confident in their belief that the project can be stopped, why bother to consider how the impacts could be reduced if it went ahead? The project is doomed, why waste any more time and money on it than necessary? This one isn't borne out by the statistics, since out of 16 projects to be decided so far, 15 got a positive decision and one a negative one. But of course each project either stands or falls on its own, unrelated to any other project.

The third reason is more psychological: the idea that if you start considering how to improve the project, this means that you are less serious about objecting to it in principle. I can see some force in this. Even if other people outwardly accept that the objection in principle still stands, there is possibly a subconscious change in mindset that if we are talking about how to improve the project, we can imagine it being granted in some form. This is probably the most difficult part of the issue to address.

2014 review

The 2014 review document has a section on 'improving engagement with local communities, local authorities and statutory consultees' starting on page 22.

The document has a 'developing improvements now' box where it promises three video clips explaining the process. In fact PINS has taken to youtube to publish the first of these, which can be found here. You can hear the stages of the Planning Act regime explained to you in a gentle Scottish accent.

The document goes on to set out what issues have been raised (community groups find it difficult to engage with the large volume of written material, some statutory bodies do conduct pre-application engagement effectively, local authorities have resourcing issues addressing nationally significant infrastructure projects), and two ideas that have been made (guidance on the importance of developers and statutory consultees engaging early and peer support, sharing of lessons learned and examples of good documentation).

All well and good, but they do not address the problem I have outlined. What can be done about it?

One possibility is to incentivise pre-application engagement with guidance that says something like 'raising an issue later when it could have been raised earlier will carry less weight'. That is probably more suitable for statutory bodies than local people and groups, though, and if the goal is the best project possible then a good suggestion should have appropriate weight whenever it is raised.

A better option might be to state in guidance that any objection in principle will not be watered down by proposals from the same party to ameliorate the impacts of the project if it were to go ahead. I don't think that's the whole answer, though, and look forward to hearing other suggestions through the 2014 review and otherwise.

Champagne

It's time to announce the answers to the Christmas champagne competition and the winner.

The 16 official hidden words and abbreviations were: AMEP, Blyth, Brig, Clocaenog, DIRFT, Dogger, EAOW, Halite, Heysham, Hinkley, Knutsford, Rampion, Redditch, Tideway, Walney and Woodside.

No-one got all of them (and some found a few other somewhat iffy candidates) but John Pingstone, Case Officer at the Planning Inspectorate found 14. Congratulations to him, a bottle of champagne is on its way to Bristol. I also think Chris Harris of SSE deserves a prize for coming up with 14 as well, although two were not official. Commiserations to the other entrants, but thank you for participating. There's always next year.