Rise of the 'Super NIMBY'

PLMR’s David Madden for Total Politics Magazine

‘Architect says Charles has abused his power’. Listeners to Radio 4’s The Today Programme on 16 June this year may have been interested to hear Lord Rogers of Riverside’s tirade against Prince Charles’s involvement in Qatari Diar’s last minute decision to withdraw its planning application for the £1 billion Chelsea Barracks residential development. The casual listener may well have been tempted to think ‘Oh dear, there goes HRH sticking his oar in again, single-handedly fighting off another of his monstrous carbuncles’.

On first appraisal it’s easy to dismiss this event as something of an amusing oddity (unless you work for RSH & Partners perhaps); after all, it’s not exactly often that the heir to the throne is going to write to the Chief Executive of a development company who happens to be a member of the Qatari Royal Family to put the kybosh on a planning application.

But, without wishing to enter into the argument about the constitutionality or otherwise of the Prince’s actions, this case highlights an interesting, and potentially disturbing, issue: the rise of the ‘celebrity’ objector, or ‘super-NIMBY’ if one will, and the disproportionate impact they can have on the planning process. For the uninitiated a NIMBY is someone who objects to new development close to home – Not In My Back Yard. A quick (and somewhat soul destroying) trawl through the comments submitted by readers of the related Times article on the same day – and this story was picked up by all the broadsheet websites - showed that the vast majority supported the Prince of Wales and welcomed his stand against ‘egotistical’ architects, ‘greedy’ developers and ‘totalitarian’ planning departments. Earlier in the same week Colin Barrow, Leader of Westminster Council, had said that the Prince’s involvement had acted as a ‘lightning rod’ for other objectors, enabling more residents to come forward and register their objections.

In such an atmosphere, even if the application had not been withdrawn, it would have taken a brave Westminster Planning Committee – made up of course from locally elected Councillors, with a duty to consider the views of their constituents - to grant planning permission in the face of such high profile and vocal opposition, particularly when their own Council Leader had appeared to give his tacit support to the objectors and the future Head of State had provided their rallying call.

Of course, not all super-NIMBYs are quite as influential as the Prince of Wales. But Members of Parliament, active Councillors and even locally well known activists in a given community can have a huge impact on the fate of a planning application. It’s an important factor to bear in mind for developers who often will have invested many hundreds of thousands of pounds on their plans even before they are ultimately determined by a dozen people in a public chamber.

So, what are the motivations behind the super-NIMBY? Not all are moved by a distaste for modernist architecture as demonstrated by Prince Charles. Many may simply wish to reflect what they consider to be the views of the people they represent. Across the country MPs are looking to re-engage with their constituents in the wake of the expenses crisis and in the lead up to the next general election, which of course is now no more than a year away and may yet be called sooner. Lending their support to a popular local cause, such as the fight against a planning application, will doubtless be a temptation.

The same motivating factors can apply to local Councillors. Many Councillors will also be facing re-election in 2010 and those representing the three main parties will be looking to counter widespread public mistrust of the political ‘establishment’. A strong local cause to rally around, such as an unpopular planning application, will be music to many local representatives’ ears.

The rise of the super-NIMBY really comes hand in hand with increased local activism against large-scale and/or unpopular development proposals up and down the country. As local communities and activists become more involved in the planning process and also employ increasingly sophisticated campaign techniques, developers, by and large, have failed to effectively engage in debate, leaving the field clear for their opponents. Consequently, those taking the decisions – the local Councillors – often only hear one side of an argument and this cannot help but influence their final judgement.

Councils are, of course, seeking to involve developers in discussions with the community at an earlier stage. Each local authority in England has published a Statement of Community Involvement, which encourages developers to engage with local communities before submitting their plans and to take into account local concerns and aspirations before drawing up their final plans.

Many developers shy away from this process, which is not compulsory (except for major infrastructure plans), either fearing that they will face a barrage of objection, or simply through an unwillingness to invest time and money in a process for which they can see no real benefit. But this attitude is both short-sighted and potentially fatal to their plans. Failure to engage with the local community – and this can include residents, Councillors, community groups and the constituency MP - , simply reinforces the negative and prevalent stereotype of the ‘uncaring developer’ and leaves the ground clear for objectors to say pretty much what they want. Just as importantly, it represents a missed opportunity to promote the positive messages associated with an application – regeneration benefits, sustainability, job creation, infrastructure improvements and financial contributions towards schools and medical services to name just a few.

The real risk that is posed by developers’ failure to engage in community consultation and the wider debate around planning applications is that those making the most noise – and super-NIMBYs can be pretty loud – monopolise the dialogue to the point where it becomes a monologue. In these circumstances the democratically elected representatives who determine an application have no counterpoint by which to judge the case presented by the objectors. Subsequently, these un-filtered and un-countered arguments gain more weight in the minds of those decision takers: potentially resulting in the loss of a perfectly good development scheme, offering strong community benefits, because of the views of a disproportionately vocal minority.

The right to object, on material planning grounds, to a planning application is, of course, a fundamentally good thing. There have undoubtedly been many, many occasions when ill-conceived plans have been successfully opposed. But many cases for objection are based on very subjective grounds – one person’s landmark building is another’s eyesore – and developers, and for that matter supporters of schemes, also have the right and the responsibility to make their voices heard too.

After all, one might never be able to convince Prince Charles of the merits of modernist architecture, but developers who are prepared to communicate at an early stage can reap the benefits of simply taking the time to talk.

David Madden is an Account Director with the health and social care sector specialist political lobbying, media relations, crisis management and planning communications consultancy PLMR. http://www.plmr.co.uk/

Will we see an era of "easyCouncil"? And how will care providers be affected by local authority budget cuts?

PLMR's Chris Calland for Healthcare Business magazine

As the summer draws to a close and we survey the receding sea of rumours, wild speculation and non-stories that make up the silly season, there are two political developments that independent sector care providers would do well to note.

The reason why is because they could point the way to not only the immediate future of care provision in England, but also the possible shape of things to come under any Government led by David Cameron (who, if the pollsters are to be believed, will take power at some point in the next nine months following an increasingly looming General Election – more about that later).

The development that has those trying to predict what the next Conservative Government could look like is called (appropriately enough) the “Future Shape” project, and is being pioneered by the Conservative-controlled London Borough of Barnet.

What has already attracted headlines is that Barnet is seeking to use the business models of budget airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair to try and drive efficiency in its public services. As The Guardian reported when it covered the story, a spokesperson for the council has even gone so far as to unofficially dub the project “easyCouncil”.

In a nutshell, what Barnet has suggested doing is copying the practices of some of the budget airlines, whereby customers are presented with a low-cost initial charge but then pay extra for all additional services (for example, a flight to Majorca might be priced at 99p, but there are then charges for checking-in, priority boarding, airport taxes, and so on).

So, with regards to care services, under Barnet’s plans an individual might be offered a basic level of service at a lower cost, but would then use their personal budgets or allowances to choose what other services they wished to purchase with the money they had available (which is obviously not that radical a departure from the evolving personalisation agenda, although it would perhaps see a greater emphasis on the contribution from the individual).

It’s not surprising, therefore, that some political commentators have suggested that the Barnet project could point the way to how a future Conservative Government could push through radical public service reform amid heavy spending cuts (although David Cameron’s recent comments in a speech to the Local Government Association were more in the vein of allowing councils to make such reforms, rather than forcing them to do so).

If emulated, the Future Shape project could also possibly open up many new opportunities to independent sector providers – Barnet alone is looking to make savings of up to £15 million a year by outsourcing services, including notably residential care.

However, with huge pressures on the public finances, many local councils are already seeking to implement cost cutting measures in anticipation of cuts imposed upon them by Central Government (whoever wins the next election). And this is the second of the two recent political developments that independent sector providers would do well to note.

Indeed, if you’re reading this column you may have already noticed the effects of this development. Specifically, many local councils are tightening their eligibility criteria for older people accessing care services, meaning that it is increasingly those with more acute needs who are gaining placements.

Why is that important news for care providers? Well, if local councils continue to tighten eligibility criteria, one obvious knock-on effect is that providers of specialist services (such as Dementia care) will continue to receive local authority placements, whilst those that focus on providing local authority-funded services for people with more intermediate needs will start to feel the pinch (unless they can make up the shortfall by attracting self-funders).

Now, a national insurance scheme for social care as proposed in the Government’s recent Green Paper on the reform of adult care and support in England may, of course, change all of that. However, with the aforementioned looming General Election now dominating discourse at Westminster, don’t expect much progress on the implementation of the proposals in the Green Paper any time soon.

But do certainly expect local councils to try and continue to tighten their belts, well before any change of Government seeks to implement across the board savings.

Chris Calland is a Senior Account Manager with the health and social care sector specialist political lobbying, media relations, crisis management and planning communications consultancy PLMR. http://www.plmr.co.uk/