Design Our Space - Community Action
Planning
We have six months to produce a 'development brief' for the Southern Area.
To ensure maximum community involvement and participation, we are going to
do this using a process we are calling Community Action Planning.
This page describes the process and the
timetable.
The Community Action Planning Process
The proposed CAP process has three key objectives:
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It must engage people in the community directly and do it democratically
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It must allow people to design and plan directly, not through professionals
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It must come to a practical proposal in the timescale allowed, that people
can support and all accept has it has been democratically arrived at.
The role of the professionals is not to decide for people but to put their
expertise at the behest of the people. This requires:
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breaking down and explaining ideas, opportunities and limitations, without
jargon and without professional bias
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developing and presenting community wishes faithfully into forms that fit
into the professional and bureaucratic process
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ensure facts are represented as facts and opinions as opinions
The role of representatives, helpers and leaders is not to decide the
outcomes and what is the plan, but organising the process to maximise input
from people, including ensuring different perspectives are not ignored.
This must be done democratically and openly, avoiding representing or
pressurising from other interest groups who seek to introduce some pre-set
agenda or design or planning decision arrived at elsewhere.
They must ensure that the majority ideas are developed and adhered to.
They must ensure that minority views are alluded to and included if they do
not represent majority ideas.
They should bring together the issues, both facts and opinions, and
assembling these so that Community Action Planning (CAP) can take account of
them.
The community will be engaged in a specific process that allows:
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people to understand the facts and opinions
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to develop from these and their own ideas and preferences
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a set of concrete and realisable plans
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share these with other people involved in the process and reconcile their
ideas them through discussion and debate
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produce either a consensus or as much of an inclusive majority plan as
possible from the process
TIMETABLE
There process splits into three stages, each lasting about 2 months.
Public Meeting 1 (held on March 12th 2004)
Stage 1 – Information Gathering (to take 8/9 weeks)
Initial training
setting up and agreement of process
identification of helpers and allocation of jobs
training of helpers and final agreement of process
assembly of physical facts
assembly of cost and critical factors
assembly of democratic facts
analysis
gathering of opinions with feedback of new issues
Public Meeting 2
Stage 2 – Community Action Plan (to take 7/8 weeks)
Initial training
agree group structures
development of fact/opinion packs for each group
setting up and training of group co-ordinators
4-5 days of Community Action Planning
first 2-3 of these days with groups
last 1-2 days with plenary session to agree:
main proposals
compatible ideas
Write up plan
Public Meeting 3
Stage 3 – Presentation, Implications and Implementation (to take 7/8 weeks)
Presentation and report
detailed design of specific areas
costing and methodology
publicity and press
Conclusion: Public Meeting 4
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