Making a connection
Anti-development groups have used the power of social networking sites to garner local support. Now developers are getting in on the act to promote their schemes and engage the communities set to have more say over planning decisions. Neil Merrick investigates
When families buy a property from Miller Homes, the house builder also invites them to move into somewhere called My Miller Street. By becoming part of this ‘virtual neighbourhood’ with fellow Miller customers, they can find information and join online forums which help them settle into the area without leaving their laptops.
Such has been the success of My Miller Street, as well as My Miller Home (aimed at customers yet to complete purchases), that the company is poised to take things a step further.
Later this year Miller plans to extend its use of social media to public consultation over a regeneration scheme in north west England, hoping to reach people who are less inclined to attend meetings or voice opinions through traditional means such as letter writing. The move comes amid disquiet from developers who fear the government’s recent move to give local people greater influence over planning decisions, following the abolition of regional strategies, will inflame nimbyism and hold back housing development.
Sue Warwick, Miller’s marketing director, argues that much of the negativity that often surrounds proposed developments is down to poor information. If worried residents can take part in an online forum and discover more about a scheme, they are more likely to be persuaded of its benefits, she suggests. ‘Social media enables us to reach a much wider audience,’ she says. ‘We need to get more community buy-in.’
Consultation à la mode
By handing over their email address to the company, interested parties will be able to log on to Miller’s websites and, for example, watch ‘fly-throughs’ on YouTube showing how a prospective development would look on completion. The company also produces a blog and has more than 900 followers on Twitter. Both combine news of company activities with comments about government planning policy.
But while firms such as Miller are feverishly blogging and tweeting, so too are those wishing to galvanise opposition to new development - and with some success. Has the time now come for house builders to turn the tables on such foes and use new media to their advantage?
Karen Cooksley, a partner specialising in planning at lawyers Field Fisher Waterhouse, says house builders should wake up to the opportunities presented by electronic media even if they are initially nervous about what appears to be a more sophisticated form of planning consultation. ‘They will be saving themselves time and money in the long run,’ she says. ‘Online engagement is relatively inexpensive, and it’s a lot better than sitting in a miserable church hall on a Wednesday night.’
Ms Cooksley is not alone in arguing that most people find three-dimensional ‘fly-throughs’ created by computer-aided design far easier to follow than a map or plan. And in general, says planning consultant Chris Brett, they are considered more accurate than photo montages and tend to make people less sceptical about a development. ‘If you’re trying to persuade people that a scheme is good, it’s a valuable tool,’ he adds.
Let’s chat
Then there are the possibilities presented by popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. With the latter, for example, it is relatively easy to find individuals communicating about a proposed development, and, providing they agree, make contact with them and larger groups to provide information and assuage fears. ‘It only takes a few successes for it to snowball,’ says Tricia Topping, chief executive of property marketing specialists TTA Group.
Extended consultation using electronic media may become essential if government proposals to give communities more say over planning decisions are included in new legislation. The decentralisation and localism bill, announced in the Queen’s Speech last month, is expected to create incentives for local authorities and individual neighbourhoods to back development - but only after house builders show that they have consulted fully with residents and other interested parties.
Mark Loveday, cabinet member for strategy at the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, advises developers to ‘get in early’ and maximise consultation during the pre-planning stage. ‘You should show people what the housing offer is in an easy and graphic way that’s accessible to a large number of people,’ he says.
Before the recent general election, housing minister Grant Shapps said he wanted extra housing to be welcomed rather than feared, with planners incentivised to grant permission by council tax match-funding from central government for new homes built. A Conservative policy paper, Open source planning, published in February, went even further by suggesting that developers might pay compensation directly to households adversely affected by a particular scheme.
Fostering consensus
Ian Blacker, head of the planning advisory team at construction consultants JRP, says a system of incentives and payments will ‘radically transform’ the planning process. But he adds a note of caution: ‘The idea of openness and transparency will be welcomed by most people. The difficulty is that planning is about trade-offs. If you can’t reach consensus, somebody’s interests will be put out.’ The hope for fans of the new media approach to consultation is that technology can foster the consensus that more traditional methods might struggle to achieve.
That’s not to say the new planning environment has no place for the old-school approach. While websites rapidly become the norm for developers promoting major planning proposals, there remains the need for exhibitions and public meetings where people can question developers face-to-face, says Mr Brett, a partner at planning consultancy Barton Willmore.
TTA Group’s Ms Topping expects to see more and more clients using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube within months. But she agrees that social media should complement traditional consultation, not replace it.
Cost implications
Either way, the proposed changes to the planning system have upped the stakes for developers consulting over plans. According to Ms Cooksley, builders that reach financial agreements with existing residents in order to proceed with new homes will need to be clear why they are compensating particular people, taking care to avoid potentially hefty legal bills.
‘Instead of sweeping away expensive red tape and getting proper engagement with stakeholders, you could get a mass of litigation that means development is delayed,’ she says.
Meanwhile the National Housing Federation is anxious that cash-strapped developing housing associations are not lumbered with paying money to angry neighbours. ‘In a constrained financial climate, the government would have to think carefully about whether that’s the best use of scarce resources,’ says NHF policy officer Brian Robson.
Whether changes to the planning system lead to more housing and quicker decision-making remains to be seen, along with the potential costs to those wanting to build. But developers who balk at the thought of freshening up the consultation process to include new media could find themselves left out of the picture altogether, when reaching consensus over a scheme could be just a tweet away.
The jury’s out: can technology see off nimbyism?
During the past two years, developer Linden Homes has received permission to build more than 500 homes in the centre of Southampton. At one site, where more than 200 homes are planned, protracted negotiations meant that it took 18 months for the application to be approved - twice as long as normal.
Residents and other stakeholders can see how this and the other developments will look in future by studying three-dimensional images created for Linden by architects John Thompson and Partners. These were incorporated into a larger 3D model, put together by the city council, that shows how Southampton as a whole is expected to evolve during the next decade.
Dominic Chapman, a partner at John Thompson, says the firm was delighted by the way its images were incorporated into the city-wide model, which can be viewed both online and at the civic offices. Such is the detail and scale of the model, he says, that people can see how buildings will look from a particular street or neighbourhood. ‘It’s a very good way for the public to be aware of exactly what’s happening,’ he says.
But Michael O’Brien, Linden’s director for planning and design, is reluctant to claim that computer-aided design helped sway public opinion in favour of new homes. ‘3D helps a little for those willing to open their minds to the wider picture, but consultation tends to come down to issues such as roads, drainage and ecology,’ he says.
Linden sets up a consultation website for each development so that people with concerns can seek advice. In future, the firm is also likely to collect residents’ email addresses, especially for larger schemes, in order to provide more information.
But for the time being, it is more likely to use traditional means of communication such as mail or telephone to get its message across, with technology used as a bolt-on. ‘We find that writing a personal letter has more impact than text messaging or email,’ says Mr O’Brien. ‘I’m happy to use fly-throughs or 3D imagery, but you have to walk before you can run and choose your pitch to suit everybody.’
E-protestors unite
Campaigners who successfully fought eco-town proposals put forward by developers two years ago would have probably been lost without the internet.
Within months of 15 possible locations for the green communities being unveiled in early 2008, residents’ groups across England had set up websites and collected thousands of email addresses to rally supporters and keep them informed.
Vicky Newman, chair of Communities Against Ford Eco-town, based in West Sussex, doubts whether the group would have succeeded in stopping a development planned in Arundel had it been unable to collate online articles and highlight other sources of information, including websites run by developers.
With local newspapers less influential than in the past, electronic communication was critical to galvanising public opinion, says Ms Newman, a chartered surveyor. ‘It’s a question of getting people’s attention and then spoon-feeding them with information through lots of emails,’ she adds.
Crucially, CAFE used the web to follow events elsewhere in the country, including a High Court challenge by campaigners in Oxfordshire. It also exchanged information with other groups about site visits by ministers or officials from the Communities and Local Government department so that at times, she says, it felt as if the campaign was national, rather than local.
The CAFE website included a blog, written by web designer and local resident Michael Smith, which gave details of relevant parliamentary debates as reported by Hansard. ‘His weapon was the internet,’ says Ms Newman. ‘Developers were surprised by the level of objections and the strength and professionalism of the campaigns.’
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