What is the community?

The previous government was very fond of consultation. It spoke warmly of consulting “the community”. The Conservative green paper, “Open Source Planning” tells us it will give “local people the power to engage in genuine local planning through collaborative democracy – designing a local plan from the “bottom up”, starting with the aspirations of neighbourhoods…”

It all sounds so simple – but it is more complicated than it seems. Just who constitutes the community to be consulted and what weight should be given to whose views?

What happens when you get a divided community literally as with the Cutteslowe Wall built in Oxford in 1934 by private developers to keep out residents from the adjoining council estate? What about those divided figuratively by irreconcilable views like the voters of Barking and Dagenham?

Leaving aside such extreme cases, imagine proposals for a bypass round a village which suffers from heavy traffic. The farmer, who is most directly affected and whose land will be taken and severed, is firmly against it. People in the village, desperate to see the back of the traffic noise fumes and dirt, are all for it. Those in the surrounding area, who will lose a place to walk and unload the dog, are against. Motorists from nearby and further afield, who will avoid a congestion blackspot, think the bypass is well overdue.

At a national level, Natural England (who follow and set government policy on the natural environment) opposes the scheme because the road may go through the migration route for the local toad population. And CPRE is anti, because it opposes any new development in the countryside.

So this is all very difficult. Whose voices carry the day? Those that bring the most votes for me of course.