We’re engaged … But it’s not true love.
Last week saw another of WBC’s community engagement meetings for the Shinfield SDL (Strategic Development Location), this week it was the North Wokingham SDL. Observing the two meetings, they were like chalk and chalk.
Gritty, hard to swallow and even harder to digest.
It takes four to Quango
To help you understand, it’s best to set the scene first. The opening part of the community engagement is a set of tables, boards and displays which residents can go around to see, hear and discuss what’s been going on and what’s being planned and proposed.
The tables generally have a host, sometimes two or three, and they’re there to explain things, answer questions and make notes as to what residents’ concerns are. Generally the hosts are members of WBC staff (‘officers’), but occasionally it’s staff from a developer or its associated companies (‘da bildaaz’). WBC councillors (‘members’) are also among those present and ready to discuss what’s going on.
Although they’ve varied across the last few years that the community engagement meetings have been taking place, there’s a group discussion, sometimes with some opening statements by WBC members and officers, always with questions from the audience which officers, members or da bildaaz are asked to respond to.
And that’s where things get interesting.
Between the four main groups: council staff; elected councillors & executive members; residents; da bildaaz, these engagement meetings reveal some serious misunderstandings and differences in expectations.
Sorrows at Shinfield
Last week’s meeting at Three Mile Cross followed hot on the heels of the May 2018 local elections. It was also different because a member of the audience, (a candidate at those elections), had thought about the meeting, done their research and put together some notes based on the facts they’d found.
Everyone present learned of the difficulties in Shinfield and its surrounding areas. These included matters such as Health, Flooding, Traffic and Planning – ending up at Trust and Listening.
A very brave executive member started to respond somewhat before the speaker had concluded. They were interrupted by another resident whose words were spoken too quickly for this observer to record exactly, but along the lines of ‘your leader has said that you’ve heard the message and that you’re listening. You should [omitted] listen to what he’s saying‘.
Even the brave know when to take note and withdraw – which the executive member sensibly did.
The mood of the meeting wasn’t at all happy. On chatting with a visibly shaken chairperson afterwards, I reassured them that they’d done well. Things could have gotten much worse.
Mutterings at Emmbrook
The meeting for the North Wokingham SDL was held this week at Cantley House in a stiflingly hot room with limited ventilation which didn’t help the temper of those present.
In the group question and answer session, the first WBC officer who responded to the first question about the plans for Old Forest Road did little to endear themselves to the audience. They opened by saying that this wasn’t their direct responsibility, before going to explain that the consultation currently running was to either support the scheme being proposed or to not have any scheme at all. As was to be seen from subsequent questions, residents have differing views as to what should be done and they weren’t as simple as ‘take it or leave it’.
By contrast, the second WBC officer surprised everyone present by stating that despite the legislation not being strong, WBC would be taking legal action against housing developer Linden Homes for repeated breaches of planning conditions. An extra surprise was that senior staff from Linden Homes were present to apologise for the breaches – which they subsequently did.
But before they got the chance, the audience learned that WBC would also be taking proceedings against Berkshire Concrete for operating from WBC owned premises without a license – a long standing bone of contention in Emmbrook.
And while the inputs from residents were many and varied, they were none the less strongly held than those in Shinfield. Perhaps it’s a sign of things to come, the North Wokingham Distributor Road (NWDR) came in for much questioning and criticism, much as the Shinfield Eastern Relief Road did previously.
The final question of the evening in Emmbrook concerned the points which had been raised in previous meetings of this type and why there appeared to have been no action taken. Ouch.
The Last Word
Whether you’d prefer going to a meeting where everything’s pre-packaged and looks nice …
… or whether you’d prefer meetings like these where genuine attempts at engagement are being made …
… is a matter of personal taste and preference.
The chairpersons of these two meetings are to be congratulated for doing as well as they did. It remains to be seen as to how well the borough has listened and how well it responds.
