This is a guest post by ‘EastEnders Scriptwriters couldn’t make it up’
How not to do public consultations
You might be forgiven for missing this but Tower Hamlets Council is currently holding a public consultation on its strategy for investment in parks and open spaces within the borough. The summary document and a link to a survey are here.
The consultation runs until October 28, so there’s not long to get your views in.
The document maps the borough’s parks which are considered as priorities for investment to bring them up to Green Flag standard. The Council has also identified Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Fish Island, Poplar Riverside and Bromley-by-Bow as five locations in which more park space needs to be created.
The four-page document is easy to read through and the survey is straightforward to use. It invites residents to rank by importance a variety of factors that make parks pleasant places.
As always, however (and Tower Hamlets is not alone in this), the real art to consultations is to ensure that you end up with the answers you want – which may not necessarily be the answers people might want to give you.
You would think that given the recent dispute about the use of Trinity Square Gardens for a month of Christmas parties and the Mayor’s brave determination to halt the plans in honour of the war dead the publicity given to the U-turn might have included a mention that the council is currently reviewing its parks policy, and have encouraged residents to have their say.
Or maybe not.
Because calling residents to action would expose the gaping hole in the consultation: that despite the Trinity Gardens saga (and the long-running problems associated with the endless use of Victoria Park for summer festivals) the survey fails to address the policy on the closure of parks for events.
By all means tell the Council that you feel that parks should be tranquil spaces with flowers, secure play areas, space for group sport, or any of the other facilities they are proposing. But do not expect to be asked for your view on striking a balance between your wish to use those facilities and the Council’s needs to maximise the value of its assets.
This works well for the Council….because if nobody complains then there isn’t a problem.
In a similar vein, the refurbishment of Victoria Park appears to have run into problems with the news that the proposed children’s play area appears to come with no fencing (or fencing of inadequate height). Cue anguished cries from parents worried about tots wandering off or dogs being free to wander and leave mess on the playground.
Admittedly, this problem is probably more by accident than design. The proposals for the play area appear to have been included as part of the consultation on the overall plans for Victoria Park in the summer of 2009. I was at that consultation (a series of weekend events with fun activities attended by many local residents) but the details of the layout of the children’s play area were certainly not made clear at the time. And safety fences at a proper height are such a basic feature of children’s play areas that it probably wouldn’t occur to anyone viewing the plans to question whether they would be in place.
A few tweaks might have made the process more effective and had more of a response from the user group. Firstly, consulting specifically on the detailed plans for the playground might have helped. Pointing out the proposals for the fencing and asking whether they met safety concerns would ensure that parents were fully aware and happy (or not) with the plans. And visiting the park during the week to ask the views of the parents and children who were using the existing facilities would have been the belt and braces approach.
It looks as if the Mayor is going to have to improve the council’s engagement with all residents in the borough or risk being forced into further embarrassing (and avoidable) U-turns in the future. In the meantime, do use this publicity to have your say on the council’s parks and open spaces strategy by next Friday.
Trial by Jeory 
I agree Tower Hamlets is not alone in the way it carries out its consultation but it could try taking a leaf out of Hackney’s book. While not saying Hackney gets it right always, there is an acknowledgment that consultation needs to consider some basics, such as extended weekday drop-in sessions and weekend sessions to allow those (like myself) to actually attend. And surveys are only useful if the range of questions are thought through, are targeted and not a series of general questions.
The LBTH Parks survey does not ask enough questions or the right ones. I can imagine the results of ranking of what is important will be manipulated as there are key questions not asked. And it is so general that it becomes meaningless.
If Tower Hamlets really wants to involve its community and consult then it needs to do it through on-going dialogue that can really address what is important to residents and the wider community. Not one-off bland boring statutory tick-box exercises. I do think consultation is necessary and does work but only when thought goes it to it and there is genuine desire to listen and respond to what the community says. For those who have not yet responded to the TH survey, they should take a look at it, it really is quite pathetic.
Consultation/Community Engagement is just that though; it’s just some tick-box exercise to get the populace to feel as though they have been part of the decision making process, when infact the decisions have already been made.
In recent years the only community engagment led activity that translated into action based on decisions by the community, that has worked in Tower Hamlets is the participatory budgeting.
Ted, is it appropriate to have guest posts from anonymous contributors? Surely if you are offering people an opportunity to make an argument or statement with political overtones, then the author should be identified. This writing sounds like someone involved in TH politics so I think they should be identified for the beenfit of those who agree and disagree with them. If there is a reason why they cannot be indentified e.g. they are a Council officer, it would be helpful if you could give an indication of this.
Yes, it is appropriate. Maybe you’re not that familiar with the blogosphere. I know who the contributor is and it’s not someone involved in TH politics. I wouldn’t allow a politician to use a pseudonym. But I do allow people like you to use them, despite giving me false email addresses.
‘Scriptwriters’, the biggest oxymoron in TH is “consulting specifically”! This is never done by council planners. The Viccy Park situation is also saddled – no reference to those donkey rides at the 2009 consultation event – with the HLF grant. The consultation was the usual tell-us-what-you-think-so-we-can-ignore-it; but the architects also had the HLF grant to consider so lots of drawings of the proposed Chinese Pagoda and Chinese Bridge. And none of their plans for the renewal of the two existing playgrounds. Perhaps because these works are hardly heritage related.
I wonder though that even if residents/parents/user groups are consulted specifically, we should be specifically catching botches in architects’ plans. This responsibility shouldn’t be down to us, even if we are experienced enough to look at plans, or have the time to do it.
In the case of the partial and inadequate fencing of the V & A Playground, the architects have only delivered what the council approved in 2009/2010. Here is the final 2009 Approved plan:
http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/idoc.ashx?docid=cdedf5e2-a363-4dd4-8898-09771dd4ebd0&version=-1
The architects, LDA Design Consultancy, have benefitted from many lucrative contracts here in the last few years: the Olympic Park (2008), Braham Street Park (2010) and Arnold Circus (2009). They’re certainly on the ‘ring round’ or preferred partners list, hence perhaps the council planners approved their playground fencing detail:
The planning officers had two years to rethink this – like they did the Urban Beach – but they didn’t. So here we are in 2011 with an open path exit/entrance to a playground and low evergreen hedging where there won’t be mounds, sorry earth modelling, with logs stuck on top. And who will now pay if there are any remedial works to the approved fencing? Us. And all because of the actions over the last two years of officers, already paid by us.
It’s Trinity Square Gardens all over again but at least the planning officer(s) who did not know enough planning law to nix the proposal to put a temporary structure on a Protected Square, took only eight months wasting our money.
Have to add that another reason these TH planners approved this playground fencing back in 2009 could be the current obsession with all planners to remove barriers, fencing etc. See Mile End Park, next to Nando’s. Or the proposals for the front of the Ocean Estate on Mile End Road to remove the fences for earth mounds…yes, they’re all the rage…and TH planners just whoop with delight at such archibollocks as permeability and public/private space interface and urban/green space interaction.
Ted, is this an open secret: Mile End Park Stadium has already been hired out for the Olympics? Allegedly (and this is second-hand via a council officer) it will be occupied by Team USA as a pre-training camp and for the duration. If true, the security required to counter the insecure, sorry permeable, surrounds of Mile End Park will be intense. Can’t imagine residents being pleased about losing part of Mile End Park as well as Viccy Park.
‘Scriptwriters’, that Parks/Open Space Survey was as useless as any TH consultation. Could have done with some hee-hawing donkeys. Still filled it in though. What a mug.
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