I did a project on the Brigstock Camp application for a recent Open University course, U216. I thought I’d publish some snippets here which may be useful. The topic of my project was “What impact will the development of a ‘learning disabilities hospital’ at Brigstock Camp have on its surrounding area and in particular the local village of Brigstock?â€
The research was predominantly web based, with some local interviews. Bill Wilson’s report was an excellent resource though quite complex. I’d encourage everyone with an interest in this application to read it. I’d like to record thanks to Bill.
I concluded, perhaps rather predictably, that there was a convergence of views and a de-facto agreement that the impact on the local area and village would be significant and unwanted. There was shared agreement that the impact of the scale of the development, the size and location of some of the buildings, the security fencing and lighting, together with associated CCTV coverage, were not in keeping with what was a) acceptable to local people and b) in accordance with policy. Whilst reassuring that the values of local people are shared to some extent by the policy makers it is clear that the main deciding factors were policy led and that agreement with local views was a side effect, not a principal driver of the decision making process. It is also clear that the decision making process is in the hands of a relatively small group of experts and officials. This is a barrier to any alternative view of the future of the Camp. However, there was a refreshing level of openness to discussing the pros and cons of the application, and this is the first step towards much greater participation by local people in future decisions. Many local people are willing to challenge policy makers to make sure alternative values are considered. Finally, it is clear that local people need to ensure that their values are supported by significant evidence to enter the debate effectively, let alone wield sufficient power to have those values predominate in the decision making process. In the search for such evidence, some values will be revealed to be irrational. There were many such examples in this case.
I also recommended that a web site be used by local people to track the application. I hope someone has the energy to do this. Here are my ideas:
Audience: In light of the ongoing enquiry, a local village audience will remain engaged and interested in the topic. The experience of researching this report indicates they will be from a broad cross section of the local community with very differing interests.
Medium: Given the dynamic nature of an ongoing enquiry, and the various communication needs, a website is the logical way to communicate. The proposed site would be a tool that local villagers could use to track the progress of the enquiry.
Purpose: Reports and a suitable summaries would need to be published on the site. In particular, the message that real power in local decision making processes is in the hands of those that set policy needs to be reinforced; and that therefore, the local community should focus on the details of the numerous policy documents and their relevance to the immediate local situation as the enquiry unfolds. The site would be a useful gateway to policy documents and consistently strive to remove unnecessary jargon. Locals would benefit from the simplifying and synthesising of a great deal of complex information into accessible updates that would allow them to grasp the main issues. They would also benefit from a forum to express and record a variety of views on specific proposals as they emerge. Additionally, they would need some form of tool to promote their views to a wider audience as the enquiry proceeds. The promotion of local values often requires the help of the media and a good quality web site that journalists can access is the ideal way to achieve this.