An expensive pantomime of public

Participation

in planning

Katharine Kenyon

The story I am about to tell concerns a county which has been operating "public participation in planning" very thorough13r. There was little response to this until a Project favoured by the County Council aroused incredulous and angry opposition. The new public participation' exercise consisted of booking the relevant parish 11411 in Hampshire for an evening public cnieeting, and a letter from the County ouncil to the Chairman and every ihernber of the Parish Council to inform thern of the meeting so that any project which concerned them could be explained 4nd questions could be answered. , This formula had been carried out in 'arious parts of the county for some rptionths. Little interest had been shown. ,lanning Officers would arrive and find a t-eritY audience, perhaps not more than 8'entY. This, they said, was disappointing. ut the exercise was persevered in. .Suddenly the Planners were confronted With a different response. A property of awboot 500 acres of park, farm and ton°ciland some six miles from the county Wh had come on to the market and the „alif owner had applied for planning :kerthission to make a Wild Life Park on "11,11 245 acres. w:ne parish hall of the adjacent village let's booked by the county council and to tfeja sent to the parish councillors, and vire Parish councillors of a neighbouring e age Which would be affected by in c. he evening of the meeting was the haaTirne,st of an unusually hot summer. The Den ikseating capacity 150) was filled, tna-„P`a standing all round the walls, and unable to get in. Parking was a diffiutithy, the lanes were lined with cars. ex Le new owner and his agent, a zoo ofilL41, the County Planning Officer, an dencer frorn the County Surveyor's tea'n,artnaent, and a chairman were the the—, the local County Councillor was %yobs!, and he asked whether the audience car,„"4 like to move out to the cricket field, crj;lid n, g their chairs, but impatient voices Rivi;:140, carry on." Then the Chairman, Plea.' the names of the team, was asked 1(110 se to say who he was. "We don't exaW Who you are," cried a hot ancrsperated voice. That cleared up, the in, an then took hold of the meeting littie'unetioned very well. There was very wile further interruption until the end, to ba several people clamoured for a vote this a taken, and had to be assured that Thwas not correct procedure. hlee: owner of the estate told this tlietim'ng that it had been his boyhood's this 7 to oWn wild animals. He was doing _, ektioeti Order to save the most rare from r, The :n11' --ological expert explained the laysPee1.7 a large map. Forty-six different `a Would be on view. Asked about the howling of wolves he said this would not be a nuisance, as it occurred only at certain seasons and was not sustained for long at a time. Finally, the Chairman said that as so many had not been able to get into the hall, and obviously others had not been able to ask their questions, there would have to be another meeting in a larger hall before the planning application was advertised.

Before this second meeting convened by the County Council was held, the two villages chiefly concerned had held their own specially called parish meetings, both well attended, and both voting overwhelmingly that the Wild Life Park be opposed. The more distant village was concerned about the increase in traffic, already a major nuisance in its life. It was unanimously decided to ask the parish council to put on a twopenny rate for one year in order to meet the expense of legal advice.

The Minister 'called in' the planning application for his own decision and a public inquiry was held five months later, lasting for seven days, and well attended by the public. My story now concerns the Inspector's report and recommendations to which the Minister eventually gave his consent. To clarify the issue and make for easier reading I will, in brackets immediately following some of the arguments for the planning application, relate the nub of the arguments against It put forward by objectors, instead of relating them in the time sequence of the inquiry. After describing the site the Inspector stated that the adjacent village "apart from a few council houses and minor infilling appears to have changed very little over the years." Then followed a summary of the case for the applicant: The site was ideal, said the applicant, for a Wild Life Park, the soil was chalk which was good for drainage; it was undulating, near a main road but not too near, was within easy travelling distance from centres of population and sufficiently far from "existing development to avoid nuisance." (The majority of the village population did not think so.) The objects of the plan were threefold, conservation of rare animals, education and amusement. (During the inquiry it was asked whether the conservation of wild animals was really well served by breeding them here, could the offspring be successfully returned to their natural habitats? There was no reply to this question. As for education, it was well known that the chracteristics of animals changed when kept in captivity, living in a few acres instead of miles of territory with the need to find their own food. Enjoyment? The amenities of local people should be considered.) The applicant had already been granted a licence by the Ministry of Agriculture to import foreign animals. The Rural District Council had agreed to enlarge the local pumping station for sewage disposal, and the urban Waterworks Department had agreed to lay a water main to the site at the expense (£7,000) of the applicant.

Two rights of way would be closed, but others made as well as a road for cars. Besides the car-parks and necessary buildings for animals beside the fenced enclosures there would be a cafeteria; a store for wild life literature and photographs, lavatories, and picnic areas with catering facilities.

It was estimated that the number of visiting cars between mid-April and midSeoternber would be two thousand on weekdays and five thousand on Sundays and Bank Holidays. (The question of traffic nuisance and its control was argued about for many hours on several days of the inquiry. One of the local—and further afield —distresses was the probable destruction of those that were left.) Catering staff, car park attendants and general services would be recruited locally. Many trees would be felled, but others planted. The peripheral security fence would be sited well within the existing woods. Some of the enclosures would be bounded by ha-has, and therefore invisible. (It was pointed out that tree felling often led to unpredictable effects by gales on those that were left.) The project would supply a recreational centre privately financed which would fit in with the County development plan. The County Surveyor's Department was confident that it could deal with traffic problems. The appellant would widen and straighten a lane (now thirteen feet wide, winding and beautifully treed) to lead to the main entrance. Alterations to a main road to which this lane led would be borne by ordinary maintenance costs.

Four villagers supported the plan, so did one man from the neighbouring village and another from a more distant one. The Inspector reported them very fully, and each by name. He did not do this when reporting the nine local objectors, some of whom represented several people, but lumped their evidence anonymously together. Their names can be found in the Appendix.

The Inspector's last paragraph in his summary of the Planning Authority's support for the project ran: The proposal has been widely advertised and two meetings have been held; public reaction is not entirely one-sided, The diversion of the right3 of way arising from this development, if allowed, could be a matter for consideration under the provisions of section 94 of the 1962 Act when further representations could be made by those affected.

The Inspector's comment that public reaction "was not entirely one-sided" is a strange one. It would be remarkable if it were. But very few people favoured the scheme. The opposition was so strong and so emotional that the original team to explain the scheme were momentarily thrown off balance, they had not expected this. Actually they did not expect the opposition to be sustained, and imagined the second meeting convened by the County Council would be poorly attended. Public participation, as far as they were concerned, was working the wrong way; there was no apathy here, and no amount of explanation and persuasion made the slightest difference to the opposition.

The report continued with five rather surprising paragraphs summarising the opinion of a local man about traffic and other matters, and containing two false statements. These were that "noisy opposition to the scheme prevented a fair hearing" at the first meeting convened by the County Council, and secondly that at the subsequent parish meeting "the business was conducted in a slipshod manner and the voting open to fraud."

I have already described the first meeting; I was also present at the other which was admirably conducted by the chairman of the parish council. Eleven people spoke against the Wild Life Park, all being heartily clapped. One spoke for it, obviously a man popular in the village, and there was some good-humoured banter during his arguments, which he enjoyed and returned. Votes were counted with meticulous care by two members of the parish council who themselves were in favour of the Wild Life Park. Visitors did not vote. The voting was: Against, 130. For, 21.

It seems extraordinary that so much space in the Inspector's report was given to one man, who handed in no written statement to the Inspector nor to opposing sides as all other witnesses did, who re fused to sit in the witness's chair but spoke from the spectators' part of the hall and hurried away immediately after. But the Inspector evidently got most of it down in longhand an dthought it worth reporting to the Minister.

"The countryside is the inheritance of the whole community and not the preserve of those living in it. It would be immoral to deny a wider public the opportunity to enjoy the countryside by pandering to the selfishness of the few." Had this man (and also the Inspector) forgotten the rights of way across the property? And that the English countryside ' heritage ' of gentle small scale loveliness was created gradually by investment, unremitting work and continual foresight and planning. The selfishness so rightly condemned is a general human failing, and is not absent, alas, in the behaviour of many visitors to the countryside.

The Inspector's report then continues with the case for the opposition. This consisted of Counsel for the village nearest the site, with nine witnesses from the parish; a solicitor and four witnesses from the village with acknowledged traffic nuisance; the estate agent of a distant very large property which owned a farm adjacent to the site; a parish council some miles away, worried about the probable road " improvements " which otherwise would not be warranted; and the county Branch of the Council for the Protection of Rural England.

The case for the opposition Action Group was, in short, that the plan was in contradiction to the policy published by the County Council which states that no development would be allowed which would be harmful to a neighbouring amenity by reason of noise or disturbance," nor any that would "because or increase danger to road users." The policy also states that departures from it may be permitted if a development appears necessary and cannot reasonably be sited elsewhere.

Wild Life Parks do little, if anything, to contribute to appreciation and enjoyment of the countryside.

Farming would suffer for several reasons, not least being risks of infection and the certainty of increase in rats. Farm traffic would be made difficult, especially at harvest time when 300 tons of grain are transported by one farm from the fields to grain dryer and store.

The traffic problem, for the Action Group, centred round the question whether Spectator, March 1-, a 1912 the lanes would be invaded c/r Residents feared this, but those "ar, favoured the plan were sure that Car' favoured would stick to the main road 'Tie follow the promised sign-posts to the Ded lane that was anyhow to be dest,rl, These opinions were of course pure c'„„-trs' gazing. But experience all over the cow' shows that English lanes are at risk .,t Opposite the entrance to the lane w"aod to be destroyed by widening ie straightening and tree-felling, are s'td beautiful buildings, an ancientThecaaro dwelling and eighteenth century Laiso buildings, the owners of which objected to the scheme. The CPRE statement (some °•firetietd5 arguments have been among the hrecitems) ended: It is hoped that the Secretary of take into consideration the emotion el!' been aroused among those who love tlusd be unspoilt corner of the county which soal„t of the proposedchanged by the h establislInleP proposed Wild Life Park. The cynics were right. The last''ctbe although acknowledging the validity 0` traffic problem and sympathising :red those who will suffer from it, c0115i'a. that: "A Wild Life Park on the site Would tile positive and imaginative contribution aims of the Planning Authority." He was e of that the presence of ex°6 f animals c farmoinng of the site need blecomievia

to the to`j'the

of that the presence of ex°6 f animals c farmoinng of the site need blecomievia

to the to`j'the

farm stock." nearby fields a In the short, he disagreed with all objectors who valued the present Wry,' efe ment (white land) whether theY, wid adjacent landowners, villagers rleties; far, or representatives of amenity 5°'';:bio, and the Secretary of State agreed Witatioli Was the exercise in public Partic`nr y/ a needless waste of time and 'It:el o'lJt suppose that had it not been 'cam' ts al Councillors would have lost their see, tricl the next County Council, Rural Council and Parish Council electionS. crOja0/