The Devil Is In the Detail - Major New Housing Development

Although new housing developments can be contentious, particularly in built-up areas, there is an acceptance that new homes are needed and must be built.  In the UK, areas for new housing are allocated in local plans, after widespread consultation.

The Shannon Bay site has been in the local plan for ten years, so the fact that housing was to be built there was no surprise to anyone.  A large estate was planned, with 1,400 homes to be built over a number of years.

The company promoting the site was going about business in the usual manner; holding public meetings, talking to the media, organising a site visit for members of the council and negotiating with officers of the council.  The project was looking good politically: Although the council was hung, the project had the support of the two major parties as well as the leaders of the council.  In addition, officers had said that - despite the difficult politics - the scheme was safe.

There were also a number of substantial gains for the community within the scheme:

• A major new park area would be donated by the company and would host a number of playing fields;
• an acre of land would be given to the community for its own uses;
• a gift of £25,000.00 would be given to the existing community centre.

The council meeting came and, to everyone's surprise, the scheme was rejected by 27 votes to 25.  Three of the Liberal councillors had defied their party whip and voted with the opposition.  These three members were all local to the site and felt that there was a strong groundswell of opinion against the scheme.  The problems, as they saw them, were:

• The scheme was too big; 
• it would exacerbate existing traffic problems;
• the schools were full;
• the medical centre was under pressure.

All of these issues had been raised previously and the company provided perfectly rational answers:

• the scheme was the same size it had always been;
• the company was to build a new access road;
• the schools were not full;
• the medical centre was - according to the local authority - coping well.

We went to work on the project and initially conducted a diagnostic.  It was obvious that, given the delicate state of the politics within the council, it would require cross-party support in order for the project to be approved.  In other words, the Liberals, Conservative and Labour parties would all have to support it.

The council make-up was as follows:

Liberals 28 - Conservatives 12 - Labour 12.

The Liberals were vulnerable at the next election and both the Conservative and Labour groups were anxious to take advantage of this.  Both were running full-blooded opposition campaigns and were eyeing each other like hawks.

The diagnostic showed that the Liberals were likely to split on this issue given the strengh - as local members saw it - of local feeling.  Therefore, cross-party support was needed. 

After our work on the diagnostic, we conducted a stakeholder audit.  A key figure to emerge from this was the chairman of the community association.  Despite the enticements of an acre of land and the substantial grant to the community centre, the association was still opposing the development.

We went and spoke to her directly and also began a dialogue with some of the local politicians.  The chairman of the community association was surprised at our phone call and readily agreed to meet.  She began explainin the history of the organisation - of which we were already aware - and then outlined its expansion plans: they wanted to add a new sports centre.  Certainly the gift of £25,000.00 from the company was useful, but not necessary as (this was a surprise) they already had substantial funds in the bank.

She then presented a drawing of the new sports centre which she said would go opposite the existing centre.  However, if the acre of land being granted by the company was placed anywhere else other than opposite the existing centre their plans would fail.  So, if the acre were locked into that specific location, would they support the application?  Yes, with one other condition; that the acre be released now, rather than when the 500th house was buil, as originally proposed.

We went back to the company and they were shocked.  Was that all?  Yes, but these factors were hugely important to the community centre as they would allow them to contiue with their plans.  More significantly, one of the local councillors was on the committee of the centre and he had voted against the application.

We then spoke to local politicians and their fears were as they had outlines, only there was more.  The proposed sports fields were far from the existing housing development and aprents were anxious about sending their young children so far away.

Again, we looked at the scheme and found that an "urban park" - a large area of open land within the site - could be used to house a juniour sports field and this could be moved (anything is posible on a CAD screen) to be near the existing development.  This made the local representative very happy, although he still vowed he would vote against the scheme.

As our negotiations continued, other minor areas of flexibility were negotiated and granted.  What was interesting was that the total cost of all the changes was very small in the context of the whole scheme.

The Conservative and Labour groups claimed credit for some of the changes and between them they agreed that they would support the scheme next time round.  The Liberals said that the original scheme was good but that the new scheme was better so they would again support it.

On the night of the decisive council meeting, the vote was 49 for to 3 against - the local councillors remained faithful to those they represented and who had elected them and rightly so - that is democracy.

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