Fostering a sense of control: a panel discussion

Public engagement and power

Public engagement does have the potential to change developer behaviour too, particularly when supported by local authorities. Matt Bell Director Of Corporate Affairs at Grosvenor Group recalled that public involvement in a Grosvenor development in Bermondsey “made us up our game”, and having Southwark council resources to empower local residents was key to this engagement.

Vidhya Alakeson argued that community led activity is often presented “as in conflict with local authorities” when sharing power and working in a partnership way can be powerful.

But Matt Bell also argued that when we talk about a sense of control in the built environment “there’s a big difference between making places and managing places.” He believes that people don’t necessarily want to be empowered to become involved in landscape maintenance and service charges but instead “want to feel connected in quite emotional ways” to their homes and communities.

Empowering those who need it most

But control can often fall short of those who are most in need of it. Jo Negrini argued that some of the best ways of connecting to more marginalised communities are via food banks and voluntary and community organisations etc. Focusing the conversation around people’s day to day existence rather than what’s going to be built in five years is a much more effective way of getting people involved in their local area.

Vidhya Alakeson also agreed that community organisations have an important role to play in connecting people. “Place leadership isn’t held by the council. Obviously the council has a huge role to play, but you can be a leader by being in a community organisation. It’s about broadening out the context of who leads in a place.”

Building trust with developers

Public trust of developers also plays into how much control we feel we have over our communities.

Matt Bell conceded that, “Most developers are pretty hopeless at engaging with communities,” and argued for less outsourcing of community consultation to agencies and more to be done in house. There’s a distinct discipline about good community engagement. Ultimately Matt believes that developers need to “just shut up and listen.”

Green shoots

But there is hope for a different future after the pandemic, Jo Negrini added that, “if there’s a silver lining out of Covid-19, it’s that community organisations that have a real depth of understanding can now be part of strategic planning about how places are run on a long-term basis.”