Parish counsel

A common theme in both the urban and rural white papers is that communities could play a much bigger part in running their own affairs; influencing and shaping their future development. It has been described as 'positive parochialism' and clearly is now a force to contend with.

One vehicle for this approach is masterplanning. These plans can:

• set out a vision for an area undergoing change and a strategy for implementation;
  
• take the initiative in design, layout, housing, jobs and services to build or strengthen communities;
  
• show local people what an area might look like in the future; and
  
• involve local communities in their development.

Do you detect in this the hand of Lord Rogers and the Urban Task Force? Yes you do. And it is a business opportunity consultancies have been quick to seize on.

Smart review
I have been lucky enough to see it in action and by one of the smartest operators around - John Thompson & Partners, which features community planning as its third practice arm alongside architecture and urban design. The closure of Pauls Maltings on the River Thames at Wallingford was followed by the sale of the site to brownfield specialist Linden Homes. It is a big 3.5 ha site with an 11-storey building. Other than the loss of local jobs, no one mourned the building's anticipated demolition. But there were a host of local issues.

John Thompson's style is to promote an open planning evening very heavily in advance. On the night more than 250 people crowded into the site's social club. The format was one that the architects have employed before and the first part of the evening was taken up with a brief introduction to Linden and examples of projects undertaken with John Thompson. The meeting was slick but as the evening wore on I thought there was a growing sense of impatience among the more determined in the audience.

Deja vu
I have been to these meetings before when suddenly one or two characters can hijack the meeting. John Thompson has also been here before and the masterstroke was to suggest that each person wrote down their burning issue on a Post-It note. This exercise occupied everyone for 10 minutes or more and diffused the situation. The slips had to be collected and the replies stuck onto large display boards to demonstrate the range of issues.

The meeting then adjourned for refreshments and the intention was that people would split off into smaller workshops to discuss specific issues. Because there was no agenda to bring everyone back together again what happened was that the more enthusiastic filtered off into their workshops and the bulk of people drifted away.

Nothing new
Under this approach the synthesis continues to reside in the hands of the consultants. Everyone is treated essentially as representing a single issue and the public has no opportunity to weigh the conflicting issues against each other and decide which are most important. There was no follow-up meeting. Linden submitted its planning application which will probably be determined soon.

This approach probably works and its use at Caterham Barracks has just won Linden and John Thompson a RTPI award for planning achievement. But I doubt whether it is positive parochialism. I think it is 1970s public consultation brought up to date but with basically the same goal: to pass a pre-determined scheme across as many people as possible without disruption before submitting a planning application. Positive parochialism has a long way to go.