SHAPING A REGIONAL VISION: THE CASE OF NORTHERN IRELAND by Malachy McEldowney & Ken Sterret
From: Local Economy, 2001, Vol 16, No.1. (Published by Pearson Education)
A New Model of Participation?
The Regional Strategic Framework initiative was launched in 1997. One of the almost unique features of the process of developing the initiative was an extensive public consultation exercise. While `consultation' was the formal title of the exercise, and is used below, it is more accurate to describe the intended process as `participation' or `involvement' (McEldowney and Sterrett, 2000). To evaluate this initiative it is important to situate the consultation within the broader methodological approach to the preparation of the RSF.
This involved firstly `Taking stock' of the key changes and trends within the region, including population growth, housing and household patterns, changes in the structure of the regional economy as well as developments in transport. The `taking stock' exercise also considered the `the driving forces for change', particularly the wider national and international changes in technology, economic competitiveness and social trends.
From this overall analysis, a number of strategic `challenged' or issues were identified. These included the important issue of Northern Ireland's divided society and how to ensure equality of opportunity, as well as challenges relating to the economy, transport, housing and the environment. In response to these challenges, the regional planning process had in essence two components. On the one hand, a Panel of Experts was instituted to advise on experience form elsewhere in Britain, Europe and North America, and on the other hand, an extensive consultation process with the Northern Ireland public was initiated.
The consultation process was important for at least three reasons. First, in the absence at that time of directly accountable regional government and taking account of a weak system of local government, there was a political need to engage with local opinion and to make the process as transparent and legitimate as possible. This was important if the RSF was to provide direction for planning at a local level where conflict around planning issues was increasingly common. A second imperative was the need to tap into the rich vein of local and lobby organizations, particularly of place-based community groups, which had mushroomed within Northern Ireland over the previous thirty years. This is now regarded as a rich source of social and intellectual capital (Rural Community Network, 1998) which has the potential to be an important asset for the region. And third, was mentioned in an earlier paper, European Union policy was promoting the notion of community ownership of planning.
The consultation process was initiated after the publication of a Discussion
Paper (DoE [NI], 1997) and was undertaken by a Consortium of University
Researchers1 and two Community network organisations2. A new model of participation
drove the methodology for the exercise, in essence one that moved beyond
the reactive practices normally associated with planning. Since the formal
establishment of a development planning process in 1972 3, public consultation
was largely about `informing ' and inviting `objections' to the local Area
Plans. Almost inevitably, this approach triggered the particular interests
of landowners, developers and NIMBYs; in other words, those with a material
interest in specific areas of land. Wider civil society was effectively
excluded from what was perceived to be a narrowly focused planning process
that was centred on a technocratic model of `predicting' the future based
on current trends, and then translating those predictions into land and
development provisions. In shaping a new model of participation the consortium
drew upon the literature of `communicative' or `collaborative' planning
being developed by Healey (1992, 1996, 1997) Forester (1989) and others.
The central themes of this literature, which promoted participatory democracy,
consensus building and social inclusiveness, were considered particularly
relevant to the region. Here was a society which, though manifestly divided
in sectarian and social terms, had responded to a situation of political
powerlessness with a very active and increasingly assertive community politics.
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