The Good Campaign Guide:

Winning planning consents in an era of localism bears more than a passing resemblance to a political campaign…

Ten years ago PR consultants were lucky to be invited to a project team meeting, and if they did they might appear at the bottom of the agenda, somewhere below Drainage and Foul Water issues. These days most team meetings, and the focus of most clients, are dominated by the politics of a site and the views of local residents and their representatives, rather than planners or planning policy. PR and engagement has quite literally been creeping up the agenda.

Again, ten years ago one of the great challenges for firms like MPC was to persuade clients to avoid public meetings, a forum where they could only come off badly. These days we try to encourage clients to engage communities far beyond holding public exhibitions. 

As those able to come to a public exhibition are self-selecting and rarely representative of the community at large, the challenge for everyone involved in development is how to find and engage local people who will support development.  This could include: First time buyers, those seeking to move out of accommodation, local businesses as well as stakeholders who could gain via community benefits associated with development.

We see increasingly effective opposition campaigns focusing on negative and emotional issues – supermarkets ‘tearing the heart’ out of local communities, new housing ‘destroying our green spaces’. In response we have to campaign more effectively, being positive, but highlighting the emotional reasons why we want development – ‘homes’ not ‘units’, ‘parks for local people’ not ‘green buffer zones’. We should go further by engaging those who want to see development through proper campaigns designed to show politicians, the media and the wider community their strength of feeling. 

In May, Meeting Place Communications is launching its own Good Campaign Guide. 

This is designed to show a range of ways in which effective campaign techniques can be applied to the planning process. Using the experiences of a range of political and single issue campaigners, we have brought together a series of approaches that provide those of us in favour of change the tools to support our projects.

In the era of localism, hands in the air, shows of community strength, the number of phone calls to a local councillor or the number of letters on a council website will count as much as any planning policy that applies to your site.

Whatever our professional backgrounds, we all need to be campaigners now. 

For more information about the upcoming launch events or for an invitation please call Ruth on 01225 422243

Local Election Preview

England: A new system of governance on offer for English cities as labour seek to bounce back

A patchwork of English local authorities face elections this year, notably in the urban conurbations of the North East, North West and Yorkshire where Labour will be targeting nothing short of outright dominance. It also looks likely that Birmingham will swing back to Labour having been run by a Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition.

The Lib Dems national unpopularity may also lead the Conservatives to gain overall control in Cheltenham, Colchester, Mole Valley and Winchester. However, typically the Lib Dem support will be very strong in certain wards which may make this aim more difficult than polls predict. For the Lib Dems the election will be about seeking to retain what they already hold. There may be some small scale success for the Green Party as their relative strong spots of Norwich and Stroud have elections.

Ten cities in England will also be holding a referendum on whether to have a directly elected Mayor, with the exception of Liverpool which will actually be electing their Mayor having opted to “jump the queue” and passing the Mayoral decision through full council. Polling suggests most referendums will lead to wins for the Yes camp. Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester and Newcastle in particular look to be set to choose a Mayoral system. The Mayor will be voted for by the whole electorate and have executive powers to make policy. There will still be councillors as well, but the seat of power will shift to the directly elected Mayor. The Government hopes that this will lead to stronger city leadership and a better connection with the electorate. If cities opt for a Mayor, they will elect them on 15^th November 2012.

Wales: In 2011 labour limped to something of a comeback but can they re-assert dominance in Wales this time?

Labour had a poor local election results in 2008 and will expect to make take back serious ground  on this occasion. Much of their success will depend on whether those Labour-inclined voters who stayed at home in 2008 vote in 2012. They have ambitions to re-gain Newport and re-establish majority control in a number of the South Wales Valley local authorities. North East Wales will also offer the opportunity for further Labour gains.

The Lib Dems will be battling hard to retain their impressive victories which saw them leading the councils in three of Wales’ four largest urban areas.  They will also hope to retain councillors in Ceredigion and Powys. 

Plaid Cymru face their first election with Leanne Wood as leader and will hope this boosts their profile in the valleys battlegrounds with Labour, notably Caerphilly where the council is on a knife-edge between the two parties.

The Conservatives currently have outright majorities in Monmouthshire and Vale of Glamorgan, both of which they should hold. If they also cling to control in Newport as lead party in a coalition, then it becomes a very good night for the Tories. A good night becomes exceptional if they take control in Conwy but that remains an outside chance.

Scotland: Can anyone stop the SNP tide?

Scotland uses proportional representation for its local elections and the net effect is that only four authorities out of 32 have overall control, two with Labour in charge and two with Independent groups. Despite starting from a high point the SNP still hopes to make gains against all the other parties and Labour will be just as concerned to constrain this growth as they will of making gains themselves. The Conservatives and Lib Dems will be battling to try and remain relevant north of the border.

London 2012 – Ken v Boris in The Mayoral Olympiad

Plenty of headlines but little policy as London awaits the outcome of the Boris V Ken, the re-match.

Forget the Olympics, the contest of the year in London in 2012 is the clash of the political titans (or to some observers, the screwball scramble) for the keys to the mayoral office at City Hall. The campaign has been as fascinating as it has been entertaining to watch, but for all the fun, it must be noted that for one of the most powerful political positions in the country, if not Western Europe, the debate has been remarkably light on policy. 

Polling had been tight until recent weeks; at one point early in 2012, Ken even took the lead from Boris. This has changed laterally however, as the debate took a more comedic turn, arguably playing to Boris’s forte, as any reader of his Daily Telegraph will attest. 

We have had “Elevator-gate” at the offices of a London radio station, where Boris is reported to have suggested, in his inimitable way, that Ken might be something of a “f***ing liar”.  This was in response to an argument over the candidates’ respective tax affairs, something Ken had raised, sniffing out potential political capital in the background of perceived national chippiness over Boris’s status as a “toff” and “out of touch”.  He may have been on to something, but he should have consulted his accountant first as, after much argument and one-upmanship, Ken was forced to reveal his own personal accounts which revealed that he had only paid the equivalent of 14% tax on earnings over the previous four years, while Boris had been stung by the taxman to the tune of in excess of 40%. 

Since then we have had “tear-gate”, where Ken was reduced to tears in a political broadcast by the stories he was hearing from “ordinary Londoners” about the realities of their daily lives. Anyone who may have been moved by these scenes may have been less moved by the Evening Standard’s revelation that those “ordinary Londoners” had in fact been paid by Ken’s campaign team. 

Aside from the comedy, this has been a campaign that has been very light on policy. Emboldened by Ken’s gaffes, Boris may wish to consolidate his much stronger recent polling by playing the man and not the ball. Londoners may well tire of this approach however, so perhaps we can expect to see a bit more on policy in the final few weeks leading up to polling day on May 3^rd. Ken would certainly be advised to dig up some policies and quickly, as his attempts to play the man have tripped him up very badly. 

Latest betting odds:

Boris – 2/7

Ken – 11/4

Siobhan Benita (Independent), Carlos Cortiglia (BNP), Jenny Jones (Green), Brian Paddick (Lib Dem), and Lawrence Webb (UKIP) also ran.