Weeknotes S1, Eps8…. Local Plans and Lawrence of Arabia

So back to it.

It’s been a little while….. whoops! I know, I promised… it just goes to see how busy it is been. I’m always conflicted about not pressuring myself when I’m flat out, but really needing to get some content down!😬 .. Unfortunately it’s usually when you’re the busiest you have the best content, but no time to get it into legible #weeknotes! Hey ho! Will keep on working at it…

We’re in one of the busiest periods of time that I’ve known since coming into Greater Cambridge and that’s saying something! Most pressing is the looming local plan issues and options consultation coming up at the end of the year, noting that this is probably one the first truly joint local plans that will have to address some of the conflicting national and global issues in 21st century living; Growth and Climate, Inequality and shared prosperity, social discord and increasing distrust, the rapid ascension of evolving technologies.. and all this against a backdrop of the final falterings of neoliberal society perhaps?

The week has been full on: a week of full days and long evenings of committee meetings I’m starting to feel like I spend as much time with our elected members as I do with my family… I jest…!

Three memorable parts of this week I need to capture:

One

On Tuesday it was our first joint local planning advisory group committee meeting or JLPAG if you want the snappy acronym (which maybe suggests a rising grime artist rather than a geeky planning fest) *thanks Stuart Morris for the pun! This was the first meeting of a joint set of our elected members form the city council, South Cambridgeshire District and the County Council, and some of the policy team to plough through the emerging issues and options documents and agree recommendations for the councils to take through there respective committee cycles prior to agreeing to formally consult on them towards the end of the year.

At the start of the prep for this process, we conducted some early workshops to try and get a feel fo the mood of those directly inked to producing the plan before we went out to citizens. At some point around this time I coined the phrase:

The local plan is the most important thing that no one has ever heard of…

Since then this has become a bit of a mantra and having previously blogged here on the increasing significance of communicating in developing this plan and this is a real focus of officers and members alike, although be know it wont be straightforward… simplifying tomes of technical planning and legal issues into legible messaging and dialogue for the widest range of demographics is going to be no mean feat within the time and resource available.

Challenge accepted….

Two

In other news read an interesting article by Adrian Brown around policy-making, and how we very rarely ever say “I don’t know” in developing policies… This is completely nonsensical and encapsulates of this unrealistic need we have to create certainty why none exists…it’s true to say though (particularly) in government (both local and national), we often pretend that we know the answer as a self serving manifest to counter the irrational fear of seeming less knowledgeable than we percieve we should be!

I like to think I lay huge importance on the teams and colleagues around me, listening and networking with as many people and organisations I can possibly facilitate, as often as possible and applying lessons progressively and testing outcomes regularly to refine my views.

IMO, The only way to address complex issues through policy-making is to be collaborative be open and try and develop agile thought processes which hopefully can lead to agile policy-making…? No big challenge there then?

Three

Great end to the week with an away day Friday for our wider extended management team at the fantastic Storeys Field community centre building on the Edington development in Northwest Cambridge. The building was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize this year and showed real collaboration across huge numbers of professionals in delivering on of the most innovative developments around… Big Kudos to the Greater Cambridge team of rent history in progressing this.

This was definitely one of our most positive meetings yet welcome to new members of the team Phil,Chris and Steven, and it really is beginning to feel like we are making massive steps a a group. Key outcomes from today were in setting out and agreeing the importance of understanding a hierarchy of decision-making in an attempt to flatten our structure to stop things getting bottlenecked at the top In order to add pace and reality to our progress and empower the service more effectively.

Mixed with coffee, biscuits and lot of laughter it made a great end to a busy week… thanks to Jane and Heather for organising and i am pleased to have learned that Laurence of Arabia actually existed…

In pods, music and books we trust…

I’ve been tackling Louis Theroux’s new audiobook ‘Gotta get Theroux this’ this week and last week. He is an amazing writer has huge amount of incredible stories which he tells immaculately – even better it being narrated by him! I wish had half of his vocabulary and uncanny ability of being self-deprecating, intelligent, funny and honest all at the same time. No pods of late and with six hours left of this audiobook I’m totally engrossed.

Happy Sunday!