Achieving successful participation in the new UK spatial planning system

Introduction

This article assesses how the planning reforms in the UK, focused on the creation of local development frameworks (LDFs), are being put into practice and how the changes are helping to achieve Government objectives of achieving successful participation in the planning system. The article draws on an extensive range of literature sources, both academic and policy related, from land use planning and related fields of local governance and urban regeneration, including consideration of recent Government initiatives such as local strategic partnerships and community strategies—as well as ongoing research by the authors as part of the UK Government-funded Spatial Plans in Practice investigation. This article also has a practical purpose in that it is intended to be of use to practitioners in further exploring the extent to which such concepts and practical advice can be applied to everyday practices, and with what results, within the LDF process.

Following this introduction, consideration is given to why participation is needed, in terms of both the advantages of making well-informed decisions based on a thorough knowledge of stakeholder needs and expectations, and the statutory requirements set out in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (PCPA) 2004 and associated guidance. The third section asks ‘what is effective participation?’, discusses key conceptualizations of participation and explores the changing nature of community and stakeholder involvement in planning. This is followed by guidance on possible approaches to effective participation along with a discussion of the potential barriers and how to overcome them. In conclusion, the final section pulls together some of the general issues and tensions that are likely arise during the design and implementation of the participation process, drawing on the literature for ways to understand and address these.

Why is successful participation needed?

The rationale for participation and stakeholder involvement

Stakeholder involvement is one of the fundamental components of the reformed planning system. This concept is not new. Engaging stakeholders, including the public, in the planning process can be traced back to at least the late 1960s and the publication of the Skeffington Report (Skeffington, 1969) on public participation. Indeed, planning was perhaps the first UK public service to introduce public participation (Morphet, 2005). Limited in many ways compared to today's requirements and expectations, many of the recommendations within the Skeffington Report remain sensible and practical.

More recently, stakeholder and community engagement has become a well-established and accepted component of the planning process and public policy more generally. Despite some continuing concerns over the potential for community participation and stakeholder involvement to cause delays in policy development and decision taking, such engagement has become the norm and almost universally accepted as good practice. This shift has been reinforced by broader conceptual and ideological changes within the public policy arena as concepts of traditional government have evolved into notions of ‘governance’ and ‘third way’ politics (Giddens, 1998; Coaffee & Healey, 2003) and enthusiastically embraced by the current Labour Government from the late 1990s (DETR, 1999).

The twin aims of enhanced participation and increased efficiency of service delivery thus lie at the heart of the Government's overall modernization agenda and what is increasingly being termed new public governance—which formulates public policy on the basis of plurality—that is ‘a plural state, where multiple inter-dependent actors contribute to the delivery of public services and a pluralistic state, where multiple processes inform the policy making system’ (Osborne, 2006, p. 384). In this context, a large part of the rationale for the renewed attention being given to citizen and stakeholder involvement is that it could improve the delivery of essential services. Involvement of local residents and key stakeholders is seen as a way of making sure services meet people's needs and that policies are effective—i.e. getting it right the first time and therefore saving money in the long-term. In addition, participation is a way to improve the relationship between stakeholders and local authorities because ‘[councils] … become more open and accessible when people understand how they work, are allowed to have a say in decisions and share the efforts to improve quality of life’ (Manchester City Council, 2005, p. 2). More explicitly, Involve (www.involve.org), a charitable organization established in 2003 with support from the New Economic Foundation and the Environment Council, set out some of the benefits of good participation (Involve, 2005, p. 22):

	Understanding people's needs, preferences and values by talking with them is a way to enhance the effectiveness of decision making and service provision;
	Involving people in the decisions that affect them can increase the legitimacy of those decisions among participants and more widely;
	Some public services may need active participation to be effective.

Requirements of the planning system

December 2001 saw the publication of the Planning Green Paper: Planning: Delivering a Fundamental Change (DTLR, 2001), beginning a process of comprehensive reform of the planning system that culminated in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (PCPA) 2004. The justification for this change was that the existing planning system was complex, remote, hard to understand, difficult to engage with, slow and unpredictable and, generally, ‘not customer friendly’ (DTLR, 2001, 2.2 – 2.7). Enhancing stakeholder involvement, and enhanced linkages with the parallel development of community strategies, are thus at the heart of the reforms and the new LDF process.

Accompanying the requirements set out in the PCPA 2004, Planning Policy Statement 12 (PPS12) provides guidance on stakeholder engagement aspects of LDF preparation that is considerably more extensive than earlier national planning policy guidance. PPS12 views engagement as ‘essential to achieve local ownership and legitimacy for the policies that will shape the future distribution of land uses and development in an authority's area’ (ODPM, 2005c, p. 8). Local planning authorities should continue to involve stakeholders throughout the process of preparing local development documents and should tailor the techniques to engage the appropriate parts of the community at the various stages. New requirements for the preparation and subsequent testing of soundness via the Planning Inspectorate, of a Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) has also been introduced as part of these new plan-preparation procedures. Although there remains flexibility in terms of the precise techniques to be used in engaging stakeholders, local authorities are expected to have regard to six key principles set out in PPS12 (ODPM, 2005c, p. 8):

	Community involvement that is appropriate to the level of planning—arrangements need to be built on a clear understanding of the needs of the community and to be fit for purpose;
	Front loading of involvement—there should be opportunities for early community involvement and a sense of ownership of local policy decisions;
	Using methods of involvement that are relevant to the communities concerned;
	Clearly articulated opportunities for continuing involvement as part of a continuous programme, not a one-off event;
	Transparency and accessibility; and
	Planning for involvement—community involvement should be planned into the process for the preparation and revision of local development documents.

Statements of community involvement

Under the ongoing UK planning reforms, the local authority's intentions with regard to involving stakeholders are required to be set out in a Statement of Community Involvement (SCI), developed and published as part of the plan preparation process. According to PPS12 (ODPM, 2005c), the SCI is intended as a clear public statement enabling the community to know how and when they will be involved in the preparation of local development documents and how they will be consulted on planning applications. The SCI is intended to explain how community and stakeholder involvement in the LDF process links with other involvement initiatives, particularly the authority-wide Community Strategy. It should identify the community groups that need to be involved and the techniques required to effectively involve them both informally and formally. The SCI should also demonstrate how the process of involvement can be resourced and managed effectively, and how the results will feed into the preparation of local development documents. It should also set out the various points at which the local planning authority will involve the community and stakeholders in preparing local development documents.

The community and stakeholders are expected to be involved in drafting the SCI. Such involvement at the draft stage allows them to influence the scope and form of community participation that the local planning authority intends should take place when local development documents are prepared. The local planning authority should then publish the draft statement of community involvement and invite representations over a period of six weeks. Local planning authorities should then prepare the finalized SCI and submit it to independent examination. Once completed, the SCI becomes a binding commitment as to how the LPA intends to involve stakeholders in the development of subsequent documents (ODPM, 2005c).

Linking with community strategies and local strategic partnership working

It is intended that SCI be intrinsically related to other recent participatory work within local government, most notably the development of Community Strategies. In many cases, a Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) will take a leading role in preparing a Community Strategy and in its subsequent the monitoring and review processes. LSPs are cross-sectoral, cross-agency, umbrella partnerships that are focused and committed to improving quality of life and governance in a particular locality (DETR, 2000, p. 6). LSPs bring together the public, private, voluntary and community sectors to provide a single overarching coordination framework within which other, more specific, local partnerships can operate. LSPs are charged with producing a Local Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy within Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) areas, but are also a nationwide and permanent organizing partnership method that will influence all areas of local activity, particularly in the preparation of Community Strategies. Community engagement is thus a key element of the LSPs work, particularly through the principle of joint working, to bring local service providers into direct contact with the communities they serve.

Community Strategies were first introduced in the Local Government Act 2000, which placed a duty on councils to prepare strategies for promoting or improving the well-being of their areas. Guidance on Community Strategies (DETR, 2000, p. 2) stated that the aim of such strategies should be to ‘enhance the quality of life of local communities and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development’. Community Strategies are thus intended to allow communities to articulate their aspirations, needs and priorities; coordinate the actions of the public, private and voluntary sectors; focus existing and future activity to meet these needs; and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development (DETR, 2000). The underpinning principles of Community Strategies are that they engage and involve local communities, and are based on a proper assessment of needs and availability of resources (ODPM, 2005c).

As explained earlier, the concept of community and stakeholder involvement has also moved to the heart of the reformed planning system by linking this community-based document with the new system of Local Development Documents (LDDs). The aim is to put representatives of the wider community (among others) more in charge of creating a viable plan for the development of their community, as opposed to previous planning and development documents that were conceived, developed, and implemented, almost exclusively by local authority officers. Through this, it is hoped that the community and other stakeholders will be given a sense of ownership of the document and an understanding of the direction in which their community is developing (ODPM, 2005b). The Community Strategy is thus one of the key documents consulted when preparing the Local Development Framework (LDF). This has led many to refer to the LDF as the ‘spatial expression’ of the Community Strategy (e.g. Shaw, 2004; Morris, 2006). Indeed, this was a specific recommendation of the Entec Study for ODPM (Entec, 2003). However, the relationship between a Community Strategy and a development plan remains somewhat vague (Tewdwr-Jones & Morphet, 2006, p. 538). Thus, ‘people are finding their way to spatial planning, but it is not explicit’ (Waring, qtd in Morris, 2006, p. 14).

What is effective participation?

Are traditional models of participation outdated?

As previously mentioned, the 1960s saw the first formal attempt by Government in the Skeffington Report—Report of the Committee on Public Participation in Planning (1969) to recognize the beneficial ways in which the public might share in, and assist the plan preparation process from the earliest stage possible. In an academic sense this was formalized by a number of attempts to develop models of participation, which could empower local communities. Arnstein developed the best-known model in the late 1960s (Arnstein, 1969). Arnstein's ‘ladder of participation’ argued that the sole measure of engagement was the ‘power’ to make decisions and that the ultimate aim of participation was to gain ‘control’. The relative power of citizen was therefore seen to increase as they progressed ‘up the ladder’.

The simplicity of this model has proved popular in planning practice but has been criticized for assuming that participation strategies placed on the higher rungs of the ladder are superior to those beneath them. Such a model also failed to address questions regarding the appropriateness of engagement per se and the willingness of citizens and stakeholders to take the reigns of power and the responsibility this brings. For example, some parts of the planning process are highly technical and do not lend themselves to high levels of engagement and control. Many subsequent commentators have redesigned Arnstein's ladder to reflect the more complicated reality of multistakeholder engagement within the policy and planning process (e.g. Wilcox, 1994) but still retain a hierarchical structure, viewing citizen control of the process as the ultimate aim of involvement. In doing so, such alternative models can often be seen to close off many of the possibilities of achieving successful participation without necessarily bringing about empowerment. In short, such models, especially Arnstein's, continue ‘to be applied uncritically, despite thirty-five years of progress in our understanding of the factors that drive engagement’ (Tritter & McCallum, 2006, p. 156).

Despite the outdated and often criticized nature of traditional engagement ‘models’, they still continue to underpin many contemporary policy developments in the field of stakeholder engagement, and in particular, around the structure of recent SCIs. Similarly, the recent ODPM national evaluation of LSPs devised an ‘engagement spectrum’. Once more, referencing and building upon Arnstein's ‘ladder of participation’, this framework, outlined below, is proposed as a way of categorizing the forms that different approaches to community engagement take (ODPM, 2005a, p. vi):

	Giving information to people for the sake of communicating or to enable them to make more informed decisions, which might be through newsletter, websites, roadshows, etc. and might be targeted on specific groups;
	Research which may be structured (through surveys, interviews or focus groups) or unstructured (such as gathering feedback from service users, for example through suggestion boxes);
	Consultation through a variety of techniques, such as conferences, workshops, asking for written responses to policies, provision or proposals;
	Participation that may cover, inter alia, involvement in partnership structures or representative involvement on boards;
	Delegation of responsibilities, powers, management/ownership or budget holding.

Equally, previous experiences of participation in planning have often been seen to have been inadequate for a number of reasons: a lack of resources; a lack of time to consult; a fear that participation will cause project delays, a reluctance and/or lack of practitioner skills to engage with the public; a concern that stakeholders (especially community activists) are not ‘representative’; jargon-filled and inaccessible planning documents; a wide-held belief that the general public are generally apathetic towards getting involved; and, importantly, general reluctance within the planning profession to embrace cultural change.

Consensus-based collaborative planning

In the 1980s and 1990s, attempts to develop more inclusive and multiparty participation within what many have termed the emergent ‘stakeholder society’ (Hutton, 1995) led to the development of more collaborative concepts of engagement with the planning system. The overall modernization and reform agenda pursued by the new UK Government after 1997 drew on this principle and this has widespread implications for the direction of planning policy with regard to attempts at achieving successful participation.

In this context, the transition into a policy development framework where multiple ‘voices’ are combined in some way, most notably through ‘partnerships’, has often been expressed practically in terms of a movement towards ideas of ‘collaborative planning’ (Healey, 1997, 1998). Such an idea recognizes the increasingly complex governance arena(s) that are created around spatial planning with ‘more and more people, firms, pressure groups and agencies … coming to realize that they had a “stake” in a place and … seeking a way to demand recognition of their stake’ (Healey, 1998, p. 7). Concepts of collaborative planning have, in principle at least, been well adopted in the UK policy-making process (Coaffee & Healey, 2003). As Bishop (2001, p. 18) comments, ‘the core of much participation work is therefore rooted in a search for consensus-based outcomes resulting from stakeholder deliberation, reinforced with feedback from the wider community’.

However, the search for wider levels of participation and inclusive engagement can also create a tension between other key aspects of the planning reforms, most notably the quickening of the speed at which planning decisions can be made. The need to balance these elements of planning reform was expressed by the then President of the RTPI, Trevor Roberts, when the Labour Government first came to power in 1997. He argued that the role of public participation in planning had become unclear and that the precise role and purpose of participation should be clarified, commenting that ‘where planning was once the pioneer, participation seems to have lost its way and become simply part of the bureaucratic process, one of many procedural hurdles. We need real dialogue and empowerment, focused on parts of the process where participation can be effective, not a diversion or palliative’ (Roberts, 1998, pp. v – vi).

Who are the stakeholders?

Stakeholder theory envisages that those with a ‘stake’ are brought together in managed way to deliberate on key issues of mutual relevance. This might include policy-makers, beneficiaries of services, regulators, planners and government and community and voluntary organizations. A stakeholder in this sense is seen as ‘any individual or group who can affect or is affected by the actions, decisions, polices, practices, or goals of the organisation’ (Carroll, 1996, p. 74, cited in Buchholz & Rosenthal, 2004, p. 144).

Today, in the ever more complex world of public sector management, engagement with ‘partners’, and engagement with ‘the community’, form two different aspects of overall stakeholder engagement (Leach et al., 2005). This highlights an important distinction between what are termed ‘organised partners’ and ‘unorganised public’ (Leach et al., 2005, p. 3). Whereas policy initiatives within the modernization of local government agenda have clearly increased the range of opportunities for organized stakeholder involvement (e.g. via Local Strategic Partnership, LSPs; Local Public Service Agreement, LPSAs; Local Neighbourhood Renewal Projects; and action ‘zones’ for Education, Health, Employment, Sport etc.), there has been less prescription in relation to the engagement of the wider (unorganized) public. Requirements to consult the public in relation to Best Value reviews and the development of Community Strategies constitute the only prescriptive element (p. 3).

It is also possible to identify a variety of ‘stakeholder’ cohorts that give a more nuanced view of the variety of stakeholders that might be engaged as appropriate:

	Local communities, comprising individual residents, residents' associations or parish/neighbourhood councils, amenity or interest groups representing communities of interest and identity;
	Statutory stakeholders (Agencies), comprising groups that must be involved;
	Statutory stakeholders such as utility providers;
	Other agencies and organizations that can provide valuable views regarding the planning process;
	Landowners and developers;
	The business sector, including business representatives such as Chambers of Commerce;
	Service providers—such as health trusts (or PCTs), educational establishments, transport providers, emergency services and community development organizations; and
	Neighbouring authorities.

Methods and barriers

Designing an approach

There is now a vast array of guidance that planners now need to consider when designing a local or sublocal participatory approach for a particular purpose.1 In any case, rather than picking a method or technique ‘off the peg’, successful participation is likely to combine and build upon several different techniques in order to reach the goals of effective participation. Despite this, the few recent surveys of participation and stakeholder involvement in the planning system that are to be found in the literature show that traditional approaches still dominate participatory approaches. For example, Sykes (2003) shows the dominance of traditional forms of consultation, exhibitions and public meetings in recent exercises, although the use of IT-based consultation through interactive websites is expected to play a leading role in future exercises (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Most popular methods utilised to involve the local community. Source: Sykes (2003, cited in Kitchen & Whitney, 2004).

A recent Town and Country Planning Association study into stakeholder involvement in regional planning (Baker et al., 2003) also discovered little in the way of innovative practice, certainly beyond the earliest (presubmission) stages of the Regional Planning Guidance process, even though it also found that less traditional methods such as more interactive workshops, working groups and multipartner panels were popular with stakeholders. Research for the Scottish Executive similarly found that ‘even the more enlightened authorities (which may have abandoned public meetings as a means of consulting) still rely on consultation techniques that require individuals to be sufficiently motivated to turn up to events or respond to questionnaires’. Consequently they tend to get low response rates dominated by those motivated by the processes. None of the authorities questioned in this Scottish Executive study ‘were using techniques such as focus groups that can be targeted at particular sections of the local population and will elicit a response from those not normally motivated to get involved’ (PPS Local and Regional Ltd, 2005, p. 38).

Questions to ask before designing participatory processes

One of the most crucial considerations in achieving more successful participation is the choice of methods to be employed. The starting point for such a consideration needs to be recognition of the overall objectives of the participatory process. Barnes (1999) thus sets out a series of questions that need to be asked at the outset:

	Whose participation is being sought (gender, age, ethnic background etc. or geographic location);
	The type of knowledge to be accessed through the process of participation;
	The location within which participation is being sought;
	The objectives and purposes of the participation (note participation can be an end, or a means to another end);
	The degree of power sharing; and
	The scope of participation and the level at which change may be achieved.

Involve (2005, pp. 53 – 54) has also suggested a set of criteria for choosing an appropriate method. These criteria should be pragmatically selected in relation to question such as those noted above, and in relation to available resources and skills of those expected to facilitate, organize, or deliver, the chosen approach:

	How many participants can the method involve effectively? There is often a trade-off between having many participants and having an effective process. Many processes are only effective for a limited number of people but sometimes a large number of participants are needed to achieve a representative sample.
	What type of participant does the method require? These might be self-selected participants in order to engage the community as widely as possible; stakeholder representatives of specific interest groups; demographically representative participants where the intention is to provide results that can be generalised to a larger population; and specific individuals who might be targeted in order to bring in their particular skills, knowledge or connections.
	How much does the process cost? Financial constraints may have an important bearing on what is possible.
	How much time does the method require to be deployed effectively? Involve (2005, p. 54) suggests that, to plan the use of a method properly, you should allow at least twice as much time as the method itself requires.
	Does the method match the outputs and outcomes required? Some methods are good for discovering opinion about an issue that has already been formed; deliberative methods usually lead to the creation of better informed opinions; some methods are better than others at revealing common interests, creating shared vision and building community cohesion; some approaches produce new ideas and visions for change; and some methods empower participants and provide them with skills to be better involved in the future.
	Where on the spectrum of participation does the method works best? Involve suggests a ‘spectrum of participation’ that begins with ‘information giving/gathering’, moves through ‘consultation’ and culminates with ‘direct decision making’. For example, a small focus group can provide rich qualitative information but has no representative legitimacy to determine decisions by itself.

Categorizing methods

The Involve report (2005, p. 52) mentioned above goes on to explain a variety of potential methods (Figure 2), assessing each against the above criteria in specific contexts in which they have been applied.

Figure 2. Possible methods for community involvement and participation. Source: Involve (2005, p. 52).

Leach and Wingfield (1999) have also provided a fourfold categorization of participatory methods that emphasizes the importance of new creative thinking about how to achieve successful participation:

	Those essentially traditional—e.g. public meetings, consultation documents, question and answer sessions;
	Those customer oriented—e.g. opinion polls and questionnaires;
	New innovative methods that are designed to consult citizens on issues—e.g. interactive websites, citizens' panels, focus groups; and
	New innovative methods that encourage greater citizen deliberation over issues—e.g. citizens' juries, community plans, issue forums.

Petts and Leach (2001) take this further, categorizing potential participation methods in environmental planning decision making into four different levels and three types of participation (Figure 3): traditional (T), innovative consultative (IC) and innovative deliberative (ID). They also set out their own criteria in relation to the choice, design implementation and evaluation of public participation methods.

Figure 3. Typology of potential methods of stakeholder consultation. Source: Petts and Leach (2001).

E-planning

An increasingly important sphere within which community and stakeholder involvement can take place is the Internet. While many individual local planning authorities are developing specific projects and technologies to support their e-planning efforts,2 there is still a lack of widespread use of innovative methods and techniques for stakeholder involvement. This is despite the fact that recent research has shown that collaborative approaches using e-planning can be achieved (Kingston, 2002; Hudson-Smith et al., 2003). Research suggests (Adams et al., 2003) that it is the culture and organization, rather than the technological capability, of local authorities that are the key barriers. Opinion is, however, divided, with proponents suggesting concepts of freedom, empowerment, opportunity, communication and democracy (Craig, 1998), while opponents suggest it aims to deliver control, exploitation and is discriminatory (Pickles, 1995). Since methods and approaches to e-planning vary, it is, however, difficult to generalize and it must be remembered that all approaches to participation have the potential to marginalize some groups. In particular, it is not enough only to place planning forms and associated documents online and assume that the e-planning targets have been met. Moreover, a more thoughtful and creative approach to designing e-planning systems can potentially embrace the advantages and overcome the pitfalls. For example, it avoids the community being daunted by ‘men in suits’ who seemed to know everything and could talk well (Davoudi & Healey, 1995).

Research (Ghose, 2001, p. 142) has suggested numerous advantages to including e-planning as part of participatory approaches: other methods are more restricted because they are geographically/spatially and temporally constrained; the systems are accessible from any place, any time, anywhere, and theoretically any period; E-planning approaches are cost effective; opinions can be expressed freely and without fear; hierarchical information about the decision problem can be presented; there is risk of increasing complexity, depending on the users' interest; and, the information can be processed and responses provided with a quicker turnaround.

Some concerns about the approach have also been raised. These include that it is potentially elitist; it is an invasive technology that advantages some people and organizations while marginalizing others (Craig et al., 2002); the potential need for a high degree of knowledge to be able to use and understand them (Pickles, 1995); and the potential loss of the possibility of community building, since it facilitates individual responses.

Facilitating involvement and overcoming barriers to participation

Rydin (2000) agued that the key to successful participation is the trade-off between the costs and benefits of getting involved as perceived by the potential participants, arguing that ‘people need to see relatively tangible returns on the time they invest in participating in planning processes’ (Evans, quoted in Rydin, 2000, p. 3). She lists some of the strategies and techniques that might encourage more successful participation:

	Reduce the costs of participation (e.g. through paying for childcare, keeping meetings short, considering payments for participation);
	Increase the direct benefits of participation by making events more enjoyable;
	Making the impact of participation on policy decisions more explicit;
	Develop, formalize and advertise the link from participation to action;
	Focus on issues where benefits arise at the local level and are highly visible;
	Alter perceptions of policy outcomes;
	Establish an education programme (e.g. in schools) on the policy process;
	Appraise the current levels of understanding and trust in the community;
	Focus on partners within the community who have appropriate skills and a high level of acceptance in the community;
	Make use of existing local networks and knowledge to foster cooperation and coordination within the community;
	Create community-based networks that can generate social capital.

There are also likely to be barriers that need to be overcome if the process is to be effective:

	Making meetings accommodating. Much current participatory practice still relies heavily upon the skills and commitment of the participants to ensure the process and outcomes are effective. Participation often involves the sorts of interactive meetings which can be alien and intimidating to people unaccustomed to such environments (Involve, 2005). It is for this reason that Friends of the Earth (FoE) ‘talked with people on their own turf’ (Sherriff & Bullock, 2003, p. 12) rather than expecting members of the community to come to them. The use of different and innovative techniques and methods in well-organized and managed meetings can also aid inclusivity.
	Tackling inertia and suspicion. There is often a perceived need to tackle inertia and suspicion of ‘any local authority generated activity’ as, in many cases, over time, many local communities have ‘come to the opinion that whatever they say or do nothing will change’ (Lucas & Fuller, 2005, p. 472). This is especially the case amongst those who have seen largely failed past attempts to improve their area. Any such participatory process as part of the new planning system process must counter apathy amongst residents and community groups that results in them not taking part because they believe their input will have no influence. In order to avoid this situation it is important to avoid common pitfalls such as overenthusiastically marketing the process, not matching the will to do participation with organizational capacity and/or the capacity to actually make any changes as a result (Involve, 2005, p. 23).
	Creating appropriate institutional settings. Collaborative processes must not end up being merely discussions amongst already established planning elites (Healey, 1998). Healey also distinguishes a number of institutional parameters which can help make the planning process more of a participatory/pluralist democracy, moving the practice towards more collaborative and strategic approaches and away from ‘a largely aspatial, performance criteria approach to regulation’ (1998, p. 18). Such parameters include the right to a voice in spatial planning processes for all stakeholders; the duty on those centrally involved in spatial planning processes to consider the concerns of all other stakeholders; the requirements to provide robust justification and reasoning for place managing or place making; and the provision of resources in ways which cultivate consideration of places and collaborative processes.
	Involving ‘hard to reach’ groups. A survey of local planning authorities by Kitchen and Whitney (2004) showed that local authority planning officers saw not being able to reach hard to reach groups as a barrier to improved public engagement and therefore that there was a need to find ways raising awareness of planning amongst such groups. This work drew on that undertaken earlier by the Local Government Association (Sykes, 2003), which, although reinforcing the evidence that traditional methods remain in ascendancy, suggested at least an expectation that changes would take place in the future. Based on their survey, Kitchen and Whitney set out a number of steps considered necessary by Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) to improve participation. These included the need for: adequate resources to facilitate community involvement possibly by outsourcing some existing functions to free up experienced staff time (with Planning Delivery Grant identified as a potential funding source); staff and elected member training in techniques, procedures and customer perspectives; community education programmes to help members of the public to understand planning systems and processes; a particular effort to be put into reaching hard to reach groups; and, reviews of both planning and corporate processes within the authority with the aim of facilitating engagement.
	Achieving inclusiveness in a multicultural society. Barnes (1999) notes that if participation is to improve social cohesion, opportunities for involvement need to embrace those who rarely take part in such activities. This raises questions such as whether it is inclusive, equally accessible to all and able to accommodate difference and dissent. Such issues are extremely challenging. Parekh (2000) argues that a multicultural society needs to foster unity and common belonging in order to be able to take collective decisions, but cannot ‘ignore the demands of diversity’ and that structures imposed from the top down tend to have monocultural assumptions about a neighbourhood which will likely benefit some groups and weaken the position of others. Thus, a dominant group, who may not be representative, will gain effective control of that structure to the practical exclusion of others. Effective governance structures in multicultural environments must thus be bottom-up and given the flexibility to evolve over time (Allen & Carrs, 2001).
	Cultural sensitivity. One of the things emphasized in the Manchester Community Engagement Toolkit (Manchester City Council, 2005) is the need to develop methods of consultation and involvement that are sensitive to the needs and expectations of different cultural groups. Cultural Sensitivity has received widespread attention, particularly in the USA, and is a useful term for understanding the need for cultural inclusion in planning (Sherriff, 2005). For example, Guidance from the US Administration on Aging (2001, p. 5) looks at the issue from the point of view of service provision, and notes the importance of being ‘culturally sensitive’, arguing that it is the lack of this sensitivity that is resulting in the under utilization of services. Their ‘Cultural Sensitivity Continuum’ describes the level of sensitivity in terms of the relationship of the service provider to the client. It starts with fear and moves through denial, superiority, minimization, relativism, empathy and culminates in integration (Administration on Aging, 2001, p. 28). Also based on developments in the US, the term ‘cultural competence’ denotes an ability to work with cultural sensitivity towards all cultures, rather than a specific culture or specific cultures (Minnesota Department of Human Services, 2004).

Conclusions: Key issues and tensions

Inclusive and effective stakeholder participation is at the heart of the reformed planning system. However, the principles underpinning this core aim and its practical application by Local Planning Authorities are not dissimilar to those, which many argued, should have occurred under the ‘old’ system. Key points and principles of good participation include the following:

	The importance of inclusiveness. Attempts should be made to engage with everyone in a locality including hard to reach groups or those with traditionally low involvement profiles. This may entail targeting resources and providing reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses, for example associated with childcare or travel costs. Importance should be placed upon issues of ‘representativness’ and ‘self appointment’, which might not accurately reflect group viewpoints, and utilizing a variety of methods tailored to particular audiences. This might well require new and innovate techniques to be adopted. E-planning, for example, can extend the hours of availability of planning documents and a ‘one-stop shop’ can reduce the amount of time that stakeholders need to spend establishing who to contact. It may also be possible to group particular stakeholders together for participation events but, in doing so, care must be taken not to lose, or accentuate, particular viewpoints.
	Manage the expectations of participants. It is important at the outset of a participative event to make clear to all stakeholders what outcomes are possible and what restrictions are placed upon decision making from other policies or directives. This is especially important with regard to retaining the interest and motivation of stakeholders on long-term issues.
	Transparency and communication. The information to be disseminated should be commonly agreed and made accessible amongst stakeholders, perhaps through advanced use of the Internet. This should be done in clear and concise language, avoiding complicated ‘planning terminology’. Translation of key documents into alternative languages might also be required. Detailed feedback from events with associated action points should be used to demonstrate that the LPA is taking on board (and acting on where appropriate) viewpoints of stakeholders and not just ‘ticking the box’ of consultation.
	Avoidance of predetermined outcomes. True involvement is about influencing a process rather than just being informed about what is going to happen. Participation events where the decision is already determined, and where the response to calls for a different response is primarily defensive, should be avoided. In this sense, participation should be a central part of how the plan is produced and not an aside, add-on or diversion.
	Joined-up participation strategies. LPA participative events should be effectively linked, via the SCI, to the Community Strategy and other forms of consultation, thus helping to avoid duplication/consultation fatigue.
	Linkage to democratic processes. The participation process should develop collaboratively with elected members in their emerging ‘community leadership’ role to avoid accusations of ‘democratic deficit’. This could well be achieved through greater use of ward and area governance committees for planning decision making.
	Balancing conflicting views through breadth and depth. The aim of participative events should be focused towards agreement and consensus, even if this is often unachievable. Importance here should be placed on the ‘negotiating-out’ of multiple viewpoints whilst avoiding the privileging of certain stakeholders. The overall approach might draw from some in-depth work with key stakeholders, but should also be informed by the breadth of the wide community.
	Effective use of available resources. The level of participative activity should be consistent with the available resource (financial, time and human) and informal monitoring should be done to assess the value of the work undertaken.
	Reskilling and training for all. The LPA needs the necessary skills to develop an in-house capacity to conduct a wide variety of participative events. Use should also be made, if possible, of local authority officers outside of the planning department and of locally elected politicians. Capacity-building training should be offered, where necessary, to other stakeholders to allow them to participate more effectively in decision making.
	Thinking in different ways. Established ways of working often hold entrenched positions, which are difficult to change, and are strongly defended. This can impact upon the degree to which innovative and creative methods can become part of mainstream participation strategies. Many SCIs, for example, are still unthinkingly utilizing outdated hierarchical models of participation to structure their activities. New ways of achieving successful participation must be found and utilized on a ‘horses for courses’ basis. Here, importance should be placed upon building up a menu of options, which can be utilized according to particular needs and operating contexts
	Balancing speed and inclusivity. The planning system has continually suffered criticism over the length of its plan-preparation process and the limited use of inclusive engagement. The new system therefore needs to balance the competing objectives of speed and inclusion in a pragmatic, efficient and effective way, whilst being robust, fit for purpose and flexible enough to revise and adapt strategy in accordance with changing circumstances.

This article has highlighted the numerous ways in which practitioners and policy-makers are attempting to achieve greater consensus and acceptance of planning policy and more confidence in the reformed system. Some of the barriers to participation and tensions developed as effective stakeholder engagement attempts to become a central (rather than add-on) part of the new planning system, which may invoke something of a sense of disappointment in relation to recent engagement practices in spatial planning. However, there is also much that suggests that more innovative practices are slowly emerging, encouraged by more general developments in related fields and the specific principles and requirements of the reformed planning system as set out in Government policy, particularly PPS12. Theses include a number of general (e.g. Involve, 2005) and planning-specific (e.g. Rydin, 2000; Bishop, 2001; Baker et al., 2003; Kitchen & Whitney, 2004) attempts to offer practical advice on how to make such participatory practices more effective. The key message here is not untypical of more generic organizational change processes: that is it will take time to disembed the old system and its associated practices and develop more appropriate and transformative governance practices (Coaffee & Healey, 2003). The evidence suggests that requirements of the new planning system are beginning to destabilize the everyday practices of planning professionals and, slowly but surely, develop a change trajectory towards more creative and effective participation strategies. In this sense it is hoped that this article will provide a useful conceptual and practical basis to explore further the extent to which such concepts and practical advice can be applied, and with what results, within the LDF process.

Notes

1. This is a task that has been carried out elsewhere; see for example Involve (2005) and the Community Planning website http://www.communityplanning.net/ (accessed 17 Mar. 2006).

2. See for example, www.americaspeaks.org, forthvalleysgis.org.uk, www.wandsworth.gov.uk/planning and www.ppgis.man.ac.uk/projects/slithwaite.