How to do a public consultation – and survive

When Suzie Baker pictured a career in architecture, she did not envisage herself chairing rowdy meetings on housing estates or hanging out in bingo halls discussing her ideas with old ladies. In the name of community consultation, however, it’s all in an evening’s work. “Going to the bingo was a way of talking to elderly women who we wouldn’t have heard from otherwise – although they were more bothered about interruptions to the calling than anything else,” says Baker, associate director at ECD Architects. “And my colleague, a strapping blond Cornish guy, had to go to a Bangladeshi women’s sewing circle.”

Baker’s experiences will ring a familiar note with any architect, planner or developer who has been involved in a social housing or regeneration scheme – and they’re set to become even more common now that the Planning Act 2004 has put consultation at the heart of the whole planning process. Soliciting the views of local residents is an unpredictable process, as when you throw the doors open to all-comers you never know who’s going to turn up or how many. Sometimes you’ll draw little more than one man and his dog; on the other hand, Baker has arranged events expecting no more than five attendees and 50 have turned up.

Keith Shearer, Urban Design associate at Barton Willmore and another veteran of community consultation, agrees. “You never know who’s going to walk in,” he says. “Once in a public meeting in Gosport in Hampshire, the tea lady took the mike and started sounding off about urban design in a very informed way. She turned out to be more articulate than the planning officer from the council.”

An average day on the consultation beat may involve comforting tearful pensioners, making endless cups of tea, doling out sweets, buttonholing busy mothers, explaining the vagaries of the planning system without using jargon or oversimplifications or shouting yourself hoarse to be heard over barracking protesters. It’s a gruelling, go-anywhere, do-anything kind of process and for the rookie it can be daunting, drawing as it does on a mix of diplomacy, social work and pure, dogged persistence. But never fear – there are simple steps you can take to get the most benefit with the minimum pain. So Building asked some old hands at the game to share the secrets of their success …

Step 1 Check your ego at the door

The first thing to do is to ditch your professional airs and graces, says Peter Vaughan, director at architect Broadway Malayan. “You’ve got to put all your ‘architects know best’ stuff to one side. Ask people; don’t think you have all the answers. I’ve had people say ‘We don’t want a f****** sculpture, we want security lighting’. There are too many drawings of minstrels playing in public squares.”

Barton Willmore’s Shearer has had to be even more practical. “Often you have to be prepared to work on the estate and do general stuff you wouldn’t do in the office,” he says, “such as making tea or cleaning and painting an empty shop to use as your base.“

Step 2 Set the scene

You can make the process easier by setting it up properly to begin with. Those who know agree that consultation is a continuing process rather than a quick-fix – and they all have one other cast-iron piece of advice. “Don’t hold public meetings. Do NOT hold public meetings,” says Gareth Capner, joint senior partner at Barton Willmore. “You have the architect and the developer on the stage and they tell the community what they’re going to do, and then they take questions from the floor. It’s known as DAD – decide, announce, defend – and that’s the worst thing you can do.”

Instead, he recommends splitting everyone up into smaller groups of no more than a dozen people: “Then the vocal minority don’t take it over and people aren’t intimidated. If you have a workshop approach you can target hard-to-get-at people who are usually excluded from the planning process. You can even explain the complexities of the planning system if you need to.”

You’re also going to need to engage people’s attention – John Thompson, director of John Thompson & Partners, stresses the importance of scene-setting. “If people have set up a room we almost always rearrange it and dress it with banners, pictures, aerial photos … It’s a spectacle, and you need as much attention to detail as the theatre – you’ve got to be able to see, to hear and you need breaks. If the PA system’s not loud enough or there are empty seats at the front, it won’t work. You need everyone sitting in a circle with a cup of tea. We like to work in a big space with lots of things happening so people see other groups working and feel part of a process.”

Think about what you wear too – leave the suit at home. “If you’re holding an open event, people are going to be pretty casual,” says Thompson. “You don’t want to stand out as executives – you want to be seen as people.”

Step 3 Win their trust

One of the hardest aspects of consultation is winning people’s trust, particularly if they have been consulted before on projects that never came to fruition, or if your own project suffers delays that are beyond your control.

The need to defend aspects of the scheme that are nothing to do with you is par for the course. “Meeting government targets on housing density is hard to justify to residents and you can understand why they feel resentful,” says Baker. On one scheme in Brixton in south London, she says the housing association brought in the finance director to explain why the association had to increase the number of homes it was building. “He was great. He explained quite openly how associations work, how much rent they get and how much all the stock is worth. He was honest – but residents still said ‘it can’t be true’.” You can’t win. Every time you say something, they don’t trust you. It’s the legacy of dealing with the council.”

Ben Derbyshire, partner at architect HTA, has a few tips to win doubters round. “Make it absolutely clear that you’re listening. When people make a point, repeat it and record it on a flipchart. In subsequent meetings, you can relate back to it and explain what’s been done.”

Keeping a meticulous record of the process is essential, he adds. “You need to know who attended and their contact details, and photographs to demonstrate to everyone that consultation has taken place. Setting up a website means that everyone can see the entire process. You need to make it absolutely clear that you’re not in the pockets of certain groups or individuals. Do checks in the meeting – say ‘would everyone who lives in this part of the estate stand up?’”

Step 4 Get a clear picture

Once the discussion is under way, Wendy Shillam, partner at Shillam + Smith Architecture and Urbanism, says the last thing you should do is ask people what they want: “They don’t know. You need to ask open-ended questions about how they live. Anyone can ask whether they use a car to go shopping. The interesting question is why don’t they use the local shops? There’s no point doing consultation if you’re not prepared to be surprised by the answers.” If you’re talking to people who’ve lived on the estate for a long time, you may find yourself being drawn down memory lane, but don’t switch off, adds Shillam: “I love hearing reminiscences because you hear why it was better in the old days and often you can do some simple things to get it back.”

Once people do start talking about their lives, it can get emotional. “I’ve had people burst into tears because I had to tell them we were thinking of pulling their house down. I burst into tears too and gave them a hug and told her about the new home she’d have instead. If people get angry, listen to them – you’re not there to persuade. Most people start angry, but then they see you writing down what they say and asking questions and they calm down and say ‘you’re the first person who’s ever really listened’.”

All this needs to be backed up by socioeconomic data to keep your sample representative – ask them how old they are, what the head of household does for a living, their ethnicity. Then fill the gaps in your sample. “You have to go out and talk to people where you find them,” says Shillam. Buttonholing people on estates may sound daunting but really there’s nothing to be scared of: “Anybody can refuse to answer questions but most people are delightful and if they think you’re listening they will talk. You have to get people in a good mood – don’t ask people queueing up at the DSS.”

Step 5 Tackle the protesters

Consultation inevitably means getting caught up in the politics of an area. Beware the vocal minorities who may hijack the process or subvert it – whether through a well-meaning desire to improve their area or general objections to government housing policy. Tenants of council estates must be balloted before their homes can be transferred to housing associations for improvements, and it’s often the architects who must justify decisions determined by government policy and explain delays in the construction process – all the while winning and maintaining residents’ trust.

Baker has come up against the Defend Council Housing protest group in its east London heartland and knows only too well the havoc its members can wreak. “It’s a big political game. They’re given ways to disrupt the process, like challenging every detail of the minutes of the last meeting. They pick on one issue and, if it hasn’t been dealt with, they disrupt the whole process. It becomes very confrontational.”

Derbyshire says those running the process have to be equally well organised, and if it gets rowdy, remain calm and stick to their guns. “Never say die. Never abandon a meeting unless it’s absolutely impossible to proceed. I’ve shouted myself hoarse to make sure everyone can hear me over the barracking going on. We are a nation that is used to the democratic principle – when people see that you’re trying to be fair those who are trying to hijack the meeting will be sidelined.”

Don’t try and shout anyone down – instead, an appeal to the common decency of the meeting as a whole will usually succeed in calming out-of-control situations. “You say, ‘Okay, we’ve got an issue here. Do you as a meeting accept my role as chair?’ They will usually say yes. Then you can say, ‘Shall we give this point five minutes because we’ve got others to deal with?’” That should give the meeting enough structure to cope with disruptive people.

Still sounds daunting? Take heart from the fact that all the architects quoted in this piece say that whatever the trials and tribulations of community consultation, they found it a valuable addition to the design process. And you’re also having a positive effect on the community itself, as Baker points out: “It’s really interesting when you get a debate going. You get residents talking who don’t usually speak to their neighbours – it reinforces neighbourhood feeling.”