Positive feedback

I have just come back from my first ever experience of a community consultation. I am not sure these things exist in inner London - the only time I tried to put an issue onto the agenda for the Bayswater residents forum, Westminster CC studiously ignored my email. So I had to wait to come to Chichester to be empowered...

But this has proved a really interesting and encouraging day - not least to see the words and concepts we bandy about in green and white papers or in ping pong with CLG being used by people who are actually trying to put it all into practice. The issue is the development of a large ex-NHS site in NE Chichester -- which with another site is going to add 1100 homes -- or about a 10% increase in the existing housing stock.

At first I adopted the Star Trek principle of no interference -- after all I am just a temporary interloper down here. But that proved impossible to resist by the time we got to the post-it session -- I maintained my Trappism for a mighty twenty minutes.

But some impressions --

First a huge level of ambition. Zero carbon. Code 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes for the new build. Eco-homes Excellent for the refurb. When I suggested the aim should be for Chichester to be the Freiburg of Britain, it turned out that the developers had already taken a party to Freiburg earlier in the week - and were arranging another trip to that other European poster city for sustainability - Copenhagen. And interesting that the people who did the sustainability presentation were all German.

Second, how much the locals involved wanted to see somewhere that enabled people to live sustainably - and how much desire there was for high quality community facilities - whether for the arts, for public promenades, for young people -- or just for allotments.

But third, how transport looked to be the Achilles heel. If the impact of all the development is not to be to make the city even more gridlocked than it is now, the Council is going to have to put some serious investment into a radical replanning of transport across the whole city. But also some options to use the development on the site to provide facilities to North east Chichester that it lacks now - which forces everyone to drive into the centre or the the south side. Clearly important to look at these schemes beyond their footprint and to work them into an overall strategy for the locality. Interesting that the degree of thought that had gone into thinking through the transport implications and how to reduce car use/ ownership. need to provide parking space lagged so far behind their thinking about the fabric of the buildings (or indeed how to minimise the impact of the construction phase).

But the developers - and some of those present - had real concerns over the keenness and capacity of the local council to think laterally and creatively enough - and at the right time to make sure things happen.

There was a remarkable degree of positive consensus from those who turned up. And that was a lot of people - 400 over two days. The process was really good - for those who turned up. And some of the people were amazingly knowledgeable. But one of the difficulties in designing for a new community is whether the people who live close - and get the leaflets asking them to come - are the people who will want to live there. If the people who showed up are the new community it will be 70% retired; predominantly male; have about 1% children - and no teenagers; hardly anyone in their twenties. It will have a lot of people who are keen on the arts - and some very keen churchgoers (the one emerging flashpoint was over future use of the chapel - a battle of secularists vs spiritualists). So a big challenge going forward is to find the people who might actually want to live - or work there -- and involve them.

But that aside, its hard to believe that this conversation would have been taking place three years ago - that people in Chichester would be flocking to spend their weekend at a table facilitated by German architects discussing the ins and outs of zero carbon, greywater recycling and sustainable design. This is the first time I have spent five hours on a Saturday in a freezing, semi-derelict theatre and come away thinking that some of the things we do at work might just be making a difference.

Now we have to see whether this really does catalyse the transformation of Chichester from car park central into the Freiburg of Britain. Lass uns hoffen.