Care in the community: Top 10 tips for successful consultation

How do some of the teams behind some of the country’s largest, most complex and often controversial infrastructure projects establish a valuable dialogue with communities they impact? Infrastructure View spoke to Ben Heatley, Managing Partner at Copper Consultancy to find out.


Infrastructure doesn’t come cheap and, for both developers and investors, a project represents a major commitment of time and resource. It’s not surprising, therefore, that a vast amount of due diligence assessment is undertaken before the project starts. However, that doesn’t always extend to a detailed consideration of the local community’s attitudes, aspirations and associated political risks. Understanding the local area – and, critically, local people – helps to eliminate surprises and mitigate risks.


As an infrastructure professional, it’s all too easy to assume that everyone will understand why new roads and bridges, water supply, rail connection or power station is needed. Or that people who have no experience of planning and development will understand the processes in place to protect the environment and local communities from harm. But that isn’t always the case. It’s only natural for people to be concerned about change, and to want the best for their communities. So, it’s important for project leaders to put themselves in other people’s shoes, anticipate their concerns and think about how they can be addressed. 


Every major project has a risk register and it’s hardwired into planning legislation that possible negative impacts have to be considered and carefully managed. In all of this consideration of risk and impacts, it’s all too easy to overlook the benefits that a project will bring about and opportunities to improve long term outcomes for local people. Having quantified those benefits and identified opportunities to make a positive impact, it’s critical that they are effectively communicated to local people in a language they will understand. Projects have to be able to address ‘what’s in it for me?’. 


In order to deliver a major or national infrastructure project successfully, it takes a team of experts with years of experience in their specialist fields. They know the answers to the most challenging questions before they’re asked. But most people are not specialist flood management experts, or ecologists, or transport planners. As a result, their concerns do not always appear to be informed and rational. That doesn’t make them invalid. Even a seemingly irrational fear is real to the person who holds it, and their questions deserve to be taken seriously. 


It’s a standard complaint by almost anyone in the infrastructure industry that consultations about projects only attract negative voices from a limited demographic. In the past, project teams did little to go out and actively engage people. As a result, those attracted to participate are the ones with the most to lose, who generally wish to vocally object. But it doesn’t have to be like this. 

To get a different outcome, and a more balanced response from the public, active engagement has to take place, which reaches out to individuals or a group of people within the community directly. It’s not sufficient to say ‘organise an exhibition and they will come’ – most in a local area will not.


Exposing yourself to scrutiny and criticism is never comfortable, especially when local people, concerned about possible changes, may be hostile. But there is compelling evidence showing that, when projects do engage with stakeholders and members of the community, everyone wins. It can help projects to identify potential pitfalls in their plans or opportunities to make improvements, and communities can contribute to a process that addresses their fears and allows them to be involved in shaping the finished product. 

This requires projects to break cover at a point when people can still influence outcomes, and when some of the difficult questions have not yet been answered. 


How and when projects engage the public can be just as important as what they have to say. 

It’s no use coming forward with a perfectly crafted story about the benefits a project will deliver to local communities, where every possible question has been anticipated, if local people have already formed a clear impression of their own, and rumours have taken hold. It’s far better to start to talk and listen earlier, so that, even if every concern can’t yet be addressed, a dialogue can begin before ideas become fixed in concrete. 

Equally, the way in which projects communicate is vital. People are busy, so it’s not reasonable to expect them to wade through dense and overly technical information. Communicating regularly, using simple, approachable language, which tells an informative and approachable story, is far better than overwhelming people in one go. 


Processes of consultation and engagement can be invaluable, but only if they are undertaken honestly and transparently. When we say consultation, some hear referendum or veto. Communities and stakeholders must be able to influence what they can, and must not be given false hope where it is not possible to change something. Equally, it’s important to explain that every issue cannot be addressed all at once, as many complex problems take months or even years to address. Setting out how and when people will be involved and able to shape elements of the project helps to manage expectations.


The Government has promised an infrastructure revolution, highlighting that investment is a national priority, in order to weather possible economic storms and boost productivity. Referring back to national government priorities or policies will do little to reassure people. Infrastructure developers have to find ways to explain that projects are happening for, not to, their community – saying it is good for economic growth or national productivity doesn’t cut it. 

 
Local Councillors and MPs have a responsibility to represent the views of their constituents, and to help ensure that the interests of local communities are reflected in any decisions that will affect them. On that basis, it’s only right and proper that they should seek to support local people and even help them campaign against changes they are concerned about. However, these same politicians also retain the right to campaign for new infrastructure including at a national level. This political inconsistency can sometimes be hard to accept, and it means that project teams need to work harder to give local politicians the confidence to support a new development in their area, and to show political leadership in the face of local concerns.