Weeknotes S2: Eps2
Communities and BAU through the Panic
Communities and BAU through the Panic
So bit of a busy week this week; I promise not to mention coronavirus more than 200 times! although it has been taking up a serious amount of my week, and last week, and the previous week, and is likely to be the focus of our collective efforts over the next few months…….
So the beginning of the week started well with really thinking how we go about wrapping up and reflecting on ‘The First Conversation’ on the joint Greater Cambridge Local Plan that we closed on the 25th February. There’s a real drive across the team to start being super iterative in our approach to engagement and try and reflect upon the what, the how the when and the who and how we can learn from honesty and improve incrementally. Looking at some of the stats that we have analysed we really reached a huge number of more people than we would usually reach in a traditional consultation, however the proof will be in the pudding and essentially when we start analysing how many representations we had and comments back through the website then we can see the real context of what we’ve achieved.
Focusing away from the greater Cambridge local plan we still pushing forward with the delivery of our NE Cambridge Area Action Plan which is a significant master planning framework for a new innovation district in the North East of Cambridge. This is a fantastic once in a lifetime project to be working on and could deliver a truly zero carbon and inclusive community in the North of Cambridge which will be very different from anywhere else in the city.
A project of this scale and complexity is not without its challenges and we are moving towards a second formal consultation and engagement with the community; providing a draft outline plan which synthesises thoughts from what was said in our first conversation through the Issues and Options consultation as well as the incorporation of detailed evidence that we’ve been gathering to try and formulate a coherent vision and delivery framework for the growth in this area.
There is a lot we can build on success-wise from experience but there is also definitely more we can do and reflecting on some of the positives we learned from our Local Plan work I have put an engagement and participation team around the emerging draft AAP to allow the planners to focus on the technical detail while the right program of communications, messaging and inclusive participation is arranged around it. This will be fundamental in our aims for improving how we make planning accessible and much more inclusive/less exclusive, simplifying our language use and re-visioning how we take it to our communities who this has profound effects on but who are more or less completely excluded by the often complex and convoluted way planning and placemaking is delivered in the UK.
Notwithstanding how successful our (very basic) digital approach and our (early reconsideration of) community participation was this time around, one of the key messages we have learned this week was how present and articulate the process timeline in a really simplified way for the next 12 months — really bringing out when and how people can engage with us on what issues and why this is important. Both in terms of having their opinions to shape our approaches, but also how we can give people key information to digest that’s understandable in the context of their own lives. We’re really looking at graphics mappings and simple documents to make the most use of ensuring that we communicate complicated messages in a much more simplified format — watch this space!
Obviously like most of us in #LocalGov most of my week has been taken up with doing business continuity and emergency planning for coronavirus Covid-19 and we are taking some sensible precautions based on advice from Public Health England and Government colleagues, but we are also being really proactive where this doesn’t impact service delivery.
Other parts of my week:
Unfortunately my plans to attend they knew local government networks event #StrongerThings on Thursday was kyboshed by a sick dog (not Covid 19 related) who’s rather elderly. It wasn’t looking good for her but she seems to have pulled through and we’re hoping to have her home this afternoon. Gutted really to miss this and was really looking forward to meet Donna Hall Adam Lent and some of the other NLGN team as they are doing some unprecedented thinking and work around community empowerment; a subject close to my own heart. Next time!
The impact of Thursday's budget took up most of my Friday morning in terms of trying to decipher what it means on both a local place level and wider #LocalGov for the coming year. All this while juggling the
Much of it requires fine tuning and lacks granular detail so hopefully much greater levels of detail will arise in forthcoming white papers (specifically planning and devo from my perspective). LGUI posted a helpful summary on their new page here which picks up on some of the key points.
I’m very tuned into the #devo stuff as I really think this combined with the planning/place reform work will be fundamental in ensuring place shaping is properly aligned with the future of public service provision over the coming years. I would really like to see some of this joined up from a Gov perspective as numerous White Papers in isolation looking at issues in Silo is absolutely not (IMHO) an approach that’s going to facilitate the radical changes our social, economic and political structures which will address 21st century issues including the biggest challenges around climate and environment. No big ask then…
Reads and Pods
I’m currently balancing about 10 books and 10 pods but my key ones this week are a timely re-read of Mariana Mazzucato book ‘The value of everything’ and also delving further into Shoshana Zuboff’s lengthy tome on the rise of surveillance capitalism.
