SpitalHillStory

The Spital Hill Master Plan: McRegeneration vs Participation

“Community involvement in planning should not be a reactive, tick-box, process. It should enable the local community to say what sort of place they want to live in at a stage when this can make a difference.” From ‘Community Involvement in Planning: The Government’s Objectives’ (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Feb 2004)

“Civil renewal is the development of strong, active, and empowered communities, in which people are able to do things for themselves, define the problems they face, and tackle them in partnership with public bodies. Civil renewal is at the heart of the Home Office's vision of life in our 21st century communities. As a political philosophy it has been around for centuries…” From www.active-citizen.org.uk, a home office funded project.

“Those who pay lip-service to a principle they do not intend to put into practice always run the risk of being outflanked by those whose homage is more sincere. Hence the idea of democracy, or of popular power, however much and however easily it is abused and exploited, still retains a radical potential.” Anthony Arblaster

What’s the story?

This is a story about Burngreave, as told by an outsider. It is also an invitation for all involved to offer their side of the story. Such is the beauty of Indymedia – you can just click on the ‘make a quick comment’ button below, and away you go!

Think of this as just the beginning – a first step in an ongoing journey. There’s a lot of ground covered in this article, and a whole load of issues, planning laws and history that I’m only just beginning to find out about. These things deserve a lot more time and detail than I’ve given them, and I’ll have got plenty of things wrong. I’m hoping that there are folk out there who’ll have something to say, and be able to correct the mistakes. But we have to start somewhere!

I’m not from Burngreave. I live in Meersbrook, on the other side of the city. But I’ve found myself getting involved with some of the goings-on in Burngreave recently – specifically, the Spital Hill Master Plan.

For those as don’t know, the Master Plan is part of the Government’s housing renewal programme, catchily entitled ‘Transform South Yorkshire Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder’, aimed at regenerating failing housing markets. The overall ‘Master Plan’ is needed if the housing renewal money is to be made available. It is also designed to ‘encourage and direct other private and public investment’. The plan is being drawn up by consultants, LDA Urban Design.

The first heard thing I heard about the Master Plan was that large sections of Spital Hill - amongst other areas – were marked for demolition. Large areas where, as far I knew, a thriving trade was already happening. This got me curious.

Now - this is not an article that aims to accuse anyone of duplicity, wrong-doing, corruption, or any of those usual things that many Indymedia readers might assume are inherent qualities of politicians everywhere. Which is not to say these things don’t go on. (Donnygate anyone?) But my presumption is that all involved are working hard to do good things in difficult circumstances. Anyone who’s seen the work that the Burngreave Area Panel are doing knows this. It’s not my aim to undermine or belittle any of this. Quite the reverse! The aim is to offer support to all the hard work that has already been done, and to build on it. (Well… build on it without necessarily knocking it down!)

The plan is this: to look at the Plan, to ask some questions about it, and then to ask some specific questions about participation. (Not only participation, but the actual economic value of the proposals – more of which later.)

In this article, I’m concentrating on the ‘economic strategy’ part of the Master Plan, but there’s a whole job to do on the vexed question of housing. Anyone?

The plans

Click <a href="http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/in-your-area/planning-and-city-development/planning-documents/consultation-drafts/burngreave-and-fir-vale">here</a> and scroll to the bottom of the council's page, where you can see the plans for yourself.

To quote from the Mater Plan document –

“The prime objectives of the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder programme are to bring radical improvements to the housing market in selected areas and to bring transformational changes to towns and neighbourhoods to create successful, vibrant places where people will choose to live. These will be achieved by securing a different balance of tenure and house type, a quality environment and thriving centres, such that the area can be become a location of choice for both existing and incoming residents.”

All very good. But straight away, little alarm bells start ringing. It appears though the usual one-size-fits-all approach has been used. Is there any other New Deal or Housing Renewal area in the country where the above statement couldn’t apply?

Redevelop the area by making it attractive to inward investment, inward investment, inward investment. Draw up a Master Plan, make a Burngreave prospectus, offer grants to the private sector with the help of the Council and Sheffield First for Investment, get the new money and the new people in - save the day. This seems to be the strategy. A time-honoured method that every good development body from the World Bank to your friendly Local Strategic Partnership continues to employ. For LDA Design or the Council, who will be doing what with any given building isn’t an issue - as long as it’s getting that investment in.

Here’s a prime example of such ‘strategic thinking’. Some might think that knocking down ‘New Roots’ (healthy, local, volunteer-run, organic café and meeting space) to replace it with a supermarket sounds like something concocted to confirm every conspiracy theorist’s most outrageous fantasy about capitalist expansion. It’s so perfect, you couldn’t make it up.

“Ah ha, Tarquin! We meet in again in the Bowels of Cutler’s Hall! Let us shake hands in the time-honoured fashion of the Cutlers of Templar, and then tell me what it is you seek, my brother!”

“Those New Roots lot, Howard – they’re filthy radicals! Selling organic, fairtrade food? Providing free community space!? Even feeding the occasional stray with cheese sandwiches as and when they pop in!!?? They’re meddling with the primal forces of neoliberal nature! Knock ‘em down, Howard! Knock ‘em down and build a supermarket on their sorry asses! I’ve already bought the shares, and I suggest you do too!”

This isn’t the way things are. It’s how things can appear when voices disappear into a democratic black hole. Sure, there’ll be plenty of property developers circling overhead, but when it comes to the strategy, we’re talking more about what might be called Masterplan myopia. As LDA Design say -

“The masterplan cannot deal with every individual site in detail but rather attempts to focus on strategic sites which could bring about a significant change in the character and perception of the areas.”

Which is to say, I’m guessing, that the people who drew up the plan had no idea they had proposed to put a supermarket in the place of New Roots. They didn’t need to know. The strategic masterplan can be passed by Cabinet, in this view, without ever needing to know the specifics, because the strategy is true, regardless of local detail. I’ve e-mailed LDA Urban Design with this story, so perhaps they’ll tell me I’m wrong. If I am wrong – what the bloody hell were you thinking, proposing to build a supermarket on top of New Roots!?

There’s also a suggestion that the consultation process itself revealed that the people’s will was for a supermarket to be built on New Roots. (See below.) It would be good to know more about this, if anyone could help. I find it a bit implausible, personally.

It’s the strangest thing, though... I’m sure I never considered myself to be a conservative. But the one thing that strikes me about this story is a lack of caution, a lack of proper consideration for already existing networks of trade and society that have grown organically over time. A lack of consideration for the complexity of the area. I find myself doubting the need for abstract plans for radical change. It seems I’ve gone Tory!

In a story on Leeds Indymedia a while back, a writer was lamenting the loss of a certain kind of anarchism. His key question was very sharp and to the point: ‘whatever happened to f**king sh*t up?’ Which is to say, more politely, whatever happened to radical change for the sake of it? Radical change to shake up the status quo?

That’s the thing, of course. Pretty much everyone’s for radical change of some sort. The big question is – who is that radical change for? Who will benefit? In the case of the Master Plan, will it benefit local Burngreave residents? We’d better be really sure we’re not doing it just for the sake of it – just because of some abstract concept of redevelopment.

Of course, consultation and community ownership is the big idea these days. If the community have led the process, surely everything I’m saying doesn’t apply? Well… let’s take a look at that community process.

Participation thus far

There’s an idea of democracy that applies equally to national elections, as it does to local engagement in ‘Master Plans’. It says, ‘here are your three choices – which do you want?’ In the case of elections, we’ll shortly be getting to choose between New Labour, Conservative or Lib Dem – or, indeed, Green in some places.

In the case of the Spital Hill Masterplan, the three choices people had were, to quote from the Council’s website -

1 Relatively little change in the form of environmental improvements; 2 Medium levels of change with environmental improvements and some new developments; 3 Radical change with a large amount of new developments that could help transform the area and bring about comprehensive regeneration.

Well now - who could object to helping bring about comprehensive regeneration? It would be like voting against Christmas.

Perhaps, though, there could have been a fourth option –

4 What do you mean by ‘bringing about comprehensive regeneration?’ I presume you don’t mean knocking down whole swathes of the area? You couldn’t mean demolishing the local organic, fairtrade, volunteer-run café and meeting rooms and replacing it with a supermarket? And knocking down the local pub? And a whole bunch of locally-owned shops? Because if you did, I think you should go back to the drawing board.

(Note that, on the tick-box forms available to locals, the above text wouldn’t have fitted in the comment box. Perhaps people were meant to use the back!)

As the quotes I started with hint at, the government is saying a lot about participation in planning, civil renewal and active citizenship. But from my limited understanding of the Master Plan process, it looks as though we’ve had something not far off the ‘reactive, tick-box process’ that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister says it wants shot of.

“But we had regular drop-in sessions! And we had a tent at the Abbeyfield Festival! And we went round to each and every trader in person to let them know!”

Hmm. Drop-in sessions do not participation make. And as regards letting traders know - whilst I was at a meeting about the Master Plan, a fellow conspirator had gone to see if he could get some traders to come along. He returned, telling us that trader he’d just spoken to knew nothing about it. He was the first person to tell this particular trader. This was two weeks ago. I’m led to believe this has not been unusual.

On message

Recently, I snuck into a Burngreave Area Panel meeting, and heard from various people there that ‘this is, in fact, the third round of consultation, the community has been involved at each stage, and so these plans are valid.’ I also heard it was untrue that the Master Plan was ‘blighting’ the area - depressing house prices, for example.

Which is interesting. If you look back at the previous <a href="http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/index.asp?pgid=39384">Area Panel's minutes</a> –

- we find that a ‘local resident indicated that he was in the process of selling his property at Page Hall and had accepted an offer, which had subsequently been withdrawn due to the prospective purchaser becoming aware of the demolition proposals for the area.’

Hmm. The minutes contain similar stories, and are worth reading. (Big-up to proper minute-taking and democratic process!)

Also from these minutes, we hear the same thing I heard at the meeting I went to -

“A representative of the One World Centre, which was in the building formerly occupied by the Margaret Arden School of Dance and which was now earmarked to be demolished to allow for the development of the proposed supermarket, expressed concern that he had been informed of this proposal only very recently, the building had been extensively renovated and local businesses were being ignored.

“The Chair emphasised that the City Council did value the traders and community groups operating in the area and that these were draft proposals which were subject to consultation. However, the latest proposals had been drawn up from the previous rounds of consultation and it was the community who had expressed a desire to establish a supermarket on this site as opposed to the Planning Officers previous proposal that it be located on the site of the former Ellesmere Elderly Persons’ Home, situated further up Spital Hill.”

Crikey! That’s exactly what I heard too! It’s good to see such consistency across meetings.

Someone else asks in the minutes -

“What were the implications for the owners of the buildings within the area marked by a blue line on the plans exhibited? The questioner was one of a number of people who had invested in renovating these buildings, which had been in a derelict state, and he personally did not wish to relocate his business.

“Maria Duffy indicated that discussions were taking place with the owner of the Lion Works and that it had been established that there were five different owners of the various buildings located in the area of the blue line as exhibited on the Plan. There were packages of compensation available and they would differ according to whether the owner of the business also owned the property or whether the business operated out of the building. She again re-emphasised the City Council's commitment to meet with all local businesses at a future meeting to work through the financial packages that may be available.”

Let me just see if I’ve read this correctly. I’ll have a go at summarising:

“We value everyone’s participation. These are draft proposals, subject to consultation. However, these plans have already been through several consultation stages, and the fact that you only just found out about the plans doesn’t change the fact that the community wants them to happen. Furthermore, we’ll compensate you once we’ve knocked the place down. But they’re draft proposals.”

Now, firstly – does the consultation process that has happened actually equal ‘the community backs the plans?’ Or does it just mean that many boxes have been ticked? (Including the one that said ‘do you want a supermarket?’ but didn’t include ‘do you want most of Spital Hill to be demolished?’ Some pernickety people might say the latter was the more important question…)

Secondly, doesn’t this sound a bit like, “we’re not going to knock your house down. These are just draft plans to knock your house down. Well… yes, we are going to knock your house down. I’m sorry that you’ve only just found out. But all your neighbours think it’s a great idea!”

So, as an outsider, the whole process has been quite a curious one! Another strange thing – the Pathfinder steering group, so I’m told, has been happily going its own way without very much to do with New Deal. (This is what I’ve heard, and I would be happy to stand corrected that New Deal have been involved thoroughly in the process.)

The concern I heard was this: Burngreave New Deal has put money into a number of projects, and successfully worked to direct the area toward a vibrant local multi-ethnic economy. It has done a lot to empower the people and traders of Burngreave. Now, its success is being scuppered by a parallel process being carried out through the Pathfinder programme – including plans to demolish buildings that New Deal has already invested in. The best case here is that things are just not very joined up. We won’t worry about the worst case now, because I hope to be corrected.

It's a Sheffield First

As I said at the start, everyone’s been trying to do good in difficult circumstances. Participation is actually a very resource-hungry venture, and unless it’s resourced properly, genuine participation is always going to be a problem. Equally, effectively joining up the burgeoning range of new measures, organisations, initiatives and funds is enough to scramble the brain of the best strategist, let alone a trader trying to get on with the day to day work of keeping a business alive.

So it’s lucky that both the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) and the Home Office – our very own David Blunkett – are pushing so hard for active citizens, for civil renewal, and for community involvement in planning, as well as for better joining up all the various plans and programmes! I have very little idea of how the government intends to put its fine words into practice but, if we work together, I’m sure we can work it out!

Let’s take a look at some of these revolutionary democratic developments - starting with <a href="http://www.odpm.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2004_0204">this ODPM press release</a>, in which Planning Minister Keith Hill is heard to proclaim, ‘Let the People Decide!’ It outlines new Planning Policy Statements, one of which is for the new Local Development Frameworks (LDFs), which will replace the existing system of Local, Structure and Unitary Development Plans.

LDFs require a 'statement of community involvement' to be formulated. Aside from the fact that it’s a requirement, however, thus far I know no more. It would be good to find out exactly what this means, and how it’s done. Would the process for the Master Plan that’s happened so far suffice as an example of community involvement? Can the community be involved in negotiating this statement? Does anyone know?

This is all part of the new Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, which is –

“… the first substantial reform of Planning Law since 1948. It will introduce a sea-change in the way decisions affecting land use are made. In addition, it makes significant changes to development control, planning procedures and the law and practice of compulsory purchase and compensation.”

Of course, some cynical people would claim that such laws were merely making it easier for councils and private companies to get on with the planning and compulsory purchase process more smoothly. (It includes emphasis on ‘front-loading’ of the development plans, which seems to mean getting as many of the decisions out of the way as fast as possible.)

Given this cynicism, it’s good to see that ‘letting the people decide’ is such a key part of the plan. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of good work to turn these fine words into reality.

The ODPM’s consultation draft on preparing these Local Development Frameworks says:

“LDFs have the potential to provide a clear, coherent and deliverable framework for future development, addressing a wide range of policy priorities. It is vital that there is real commitment to producing the LDF from across the authority and the community.”

Well, I have very little understanding of what stage we’re at in Sheffield with all this, but I reckon there’s plenty of scope in Burngreave at the minute for helping meet the ‘vital need’ of showing real commitment from all sides. I think, certainly, that residents and traders would be very committed to a genuinely coherent plan.

The consultation draft also says -

“Sustainable development is central to the reformed planning system. The World Commission on Environment and Development has drawn up a widely used definition: ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. For this to be achieved, planning policymakers, developers and decision-makers need to consider the long term social, economic and environmental impacts of completed and proposed development.”

I just thought I’d point that out, just so we know that it’s there. It also says –

“Strong visions will be distinctive to the area providing a sense of place, as opposed to bland statements of policy that could apply to almost anywhere.” Now, what was that statement from LDA again? –

“… to bring radical improvements to the housing market in selected areas and to bring transformational changes to towns and neighbourhoods to create successful, vibrant places where people will choose to live. These will be achieved by securing a different balance of tenure and house type, a quality environment and thriving centres, such that the area can be become a location of choice for both existing and incoming residentszzzzzzzz….”

Hmm… sounds a bit like the kind of McRegeneration that John Prescott’s office is against, I’d say!

It all adds up to a golden opportunity for showing just how committed we all are to the kind of participatory, community-led process that everyone seems to want. A veritable sitting duck of participatory potential, in fact, which could show once and for all what nonsense all this leftie stuff about a Captive State at the beck and call of the Corporate purse is… Calling all active citizens!

And, of course, the Home Office is working to provide some of the tools for all this to happen, through their civil renewal drive. Take a look, for example, at <a href="http://www.active-citizen.org.uk/">the Active Citizen Centre</a>'s web page.

From here, we read that -

“Civil renewal is the development of strong, active, and empowered communities, in which people are able to do things for themselves, define the problems they face, and tackle them in partnership with public bodies.

“A key reason for pursuing civil renewal is that local communities are just better at dealing with their own problems. They have the networks, the knowledge, the sense of what is actually possible, and the ability to make solutions stick.

“There are three essential ingredients to civil renewal:

*Active citizenship - people who take responsibility for tackling the problems they can see in their own communities

*Strengthened communities - communities who can form and sustain their own organisations, bringing people together to deal with their common concerns

*Partnership in meeting public needs - public bodies who involve local people in improving the planning and delivery of public services.”

Fantastic! Two key government offices pushing for us all to muck in! (The Worker’s Education Association, for one, have got some money from this programme to help support such work.)

All the property, money and power that swishes around – particularly in regeneration areas – means that all the worst excesses of greed, nepotism and corruption can rear their ugly heads. So it’s good to see that the government is opening so many doors to local participation, because it’s only through such grassroots democracy that the age-old problems dogging regeneration (see below for historical example) can be kept in check.

Of course, perhaps some local groupings might find it difficult to adapt to new forms of participation. There will always be toes to step on and feathers to ruffle. On the other hand, there will also potentially be a lot of rubble to clear away. We’ll have to choose which of these options we think is best.

But we shouldn’t choose by ticking any more boxes! Now the government is, in words at least, on the side of people power, I’m sure we can manage something.

Think of it as a litmus test for our council’s – and the government’s – commitment to genuine participation. We’ve read the words. Now let’s see the action.

Here’s an example of just one possible approach to participation.

The money trail, or how to turn £10 into £50

Many people – left and right wing – think that democracy and a thriving economy are like chalk and cheese. Not so. Everyone bangs on about social capital – well, for those of you who get a cold chill down the spine when anyone starts talking about local democratic control, go and read Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, if you haven’t already. If you have, go and read it again. Why?

More civic engagement equals healthier and more vibrant local economies! Yup, it’s a win-win situation! Note also that more civic engagement equals less corrupt councils too!

Oh, but look. Note the word ‘local’ there. The ‘standard model’ of inward investment doesn’t value the local, because it never attempts to measure it. But local economic activity is measurable, and the results of that measurement can mean the difference between the Master Plan appearing to make economic sense, and actually damaging the area.

It all depends on what tools you use to measure your local economy. But before we get to that, note something else about this plan that seems to be missing – an economic prediction of the cost to the area through loss of trade and disruption of social and economic networks during the redevelopment period. Compensation costs count against the balance sheet too – as do the incentives that will be used to attract investors to the area. This could be offset against the Pathfinder money, and all the other moneys this will leverage. But shouldn’t we at least investigate?

Equally, the relationship between the development of local traders and the social linkages to different ethnic groups in Burngreave surely deserves close attention. The economy of Spital Hill has (sorry to bring this in!) a lot of ‘social capital’ issues that a strategic view of this kind cannot pick up. Different groups living in Burngreave gravitate to different restaurants and shops, and many of these act as implicit social centres. There is a complex relationship between social and economic health going on. Oh no, I’m being Tory again! I keep on wanting to conserve things!

There’s a strong chance this has been done, of course, but it’s not the kind of thing usually shared with the likes of us. It’s economics, you know. Politics and economics – two different things. Participation in politics, fine! Leave economics to the experts. Every economics textbook will tell you – start letting politics into it, and you end up back in the 1930s, with only sawdust to eat…

Well, like they say in the adverts, there is an alternative! And the beauty of it is, it’s both economically sound and participative!

“But what can it be?”

It’s called LM3!

LM3 stands for ‘local multiplier 3’. It is a tool for measuring impact on the local economy of local spending, developed and tested by the New Economics Foundation.

The ‘how-to’ document, called ‘the Money Trail’, can be downloaded from <a href="http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/uploads/The%20Money%20Trail.pdf">this link.</a>

The basic idea of LM3 is very simple – if we follow a person’s or a business’s spending, where does it go? How much stays local? And if we follow that money, how much of that stays local?

Let’s say you’ve earned a tenner, and then you spend £8 of it in New Roots. The New Roots folk then go and buy a well-earned curry from the Kashmir Curry House, and a pint from the East House to go with it – coming to £6.40 (80% of £8.) Then, maybe the Kashmir folk spend £2.50 of their takings over at a local food store.

The money flow might look a bit like Localton, in the diagram below.

If Burngreave were like Leakyville, however… You spend £8 at Meadowhall, and £2 in New Roots. The New Roots folk go to the city centre to get a McDonalds with some of their money…

In one case, the money is staying and circulating locally. In the other, it disappears from the area.

The two totals in the diagram for Localton and Leakyville (£50 and £12.50 respectively) are after six rounds of spending. That would be LM6 – the local multiplier, having followed the money six steps along its way.

Let’s be clear – the final number we end up with is the money in the area, just as if the money had come in from another source. It’s not a sleight of hand. In Localton, £10 is (almost magically, I always think!) turned into £50, just by spending locally! £10 of income becomes £50 of spending.

So, in Leakyville, you’d could perhaps make up the shortfall by government grant money – but unless it actually strengthens that local circulation, are you really helping? And in Localton, if you wanted to help, wouldn’t you think twice before knocking down the premises of already existing businesses?

In the real world

Here’s a couple of real-life examples, to give you a clearer idea of the reality behind the concept.

1. The New Economics Foundation compared the multiplier effects of shopping for fruit and vegetables in a supermarket and from a local organic ‘box scheme’ (which, if you don’t know, is a fixed-price box of fruit and vegetables delivered to subscribers’ doorsteps each week.)

The results showed that every £10 spent with the box scheme was worth £25 for the local area, compared with just £14 when the same amount was spent in a supermarket. Pretty big difference, huh?

2. Money spent by hotels and B&Bs in Tayside was traced using LM3. As ‘The Money Trail’ says,

“In a given period, the B&Bs receive £100,000 from tourists, while the hotels receive £170,000. The hotels and B&Bs then spend money on various goods and services in order to operate. Some of the chief expenditures are on staff, suppliers such as food and linen, and services such as laundering and decorating. However the B&Bs spend 80% of their turnover on these types of goods and services in the local area, while the hotels spend only 20% locally” [The Money Trail p17-18]

After six rounds, Tayside B&Bs have multiplied their income to a total of £255,000, while hotels reach £235,875 – reversing the conclusion we’d reach if we’d looked only at initial income.

Now, imagine a situation where the council went and asked all of Spital Hill’s traders to co-operate with a similar project. Not only that – they made up nice, glossy brochures explaining the principles we’ve just covered, and offered fun workshops on the same theme.

It wouldn’t need to be a lot of work on the part of traders – the paperwork already exists by law, and local volunteers could do the paper-work. This would be a genuinely participatory process - not just consultation - ending in a result that was economically sound, and which, when set against the potential cost to the area, as I mentioned above, could show that a very different Master Plan was needed.

In terms of regeneration, the local economy is vital. In twenty year’s time, the council could produce figures showing that Burngreave’s economic output appeared to be twice what it is now – using standard measuring tools.

A very clever friend of mine, however, has come up with a finding that hints at a whole different way of thinking about this, and tells us why LM3 could be so powerful. He created a computer model of a little economic world. In this world, LM3 is counted in. And the thing is – if one individual’s economic output doubled, but they also changed to only spending half the amount in the area, everybody became worse off. So, if the council was measuring just first-round economic output, this would be missed completely. They could be very, very wrong.

This is only one case, and only a first tentative step into thinking about it. But it hints at two really, really obvious things: one, that local economies are important and measurable. Two, that if we choose a method like this, we might end up thinking very differently about our strategies for regeneration.

The point of LM3, however, is not just to understand the current impact of local spending: it is to improve it.

I’m sure I can hear someone out there harrumphing, saying ‘you’d have us return to protectionism! Local isn’t always best!’ Nope – that’s true. For example, it should never be forgotten that that European wars that ravaged the continent for centuries appeared to have ceased because of inter-European trade. And all that was started by one man who saw that trade could be used to stop war. Monnet set up the European Steel and Coal Community after the Second World War, in the hope that such trade would ‘spill over’ in time into social linkages – and we’re still at peace. (At least, within European borders!) Not to mention that local has often meant local cliques charging outrageous prices.

But the local has been weakened far too much at the hands of large-scale trade, to the advantage of big developers who can afford to pay for all the best lobbyists, researchers and report-writers, as well as compete for contracts on a Europe-wide market. Tools like LM3 offer the chance to not only take account of local networks of trade, but of getting local traders and ‘active citizens’ to participate in measuring it. Economics for the masses! If only someone would put some resources the way of such democratic economics…

It's a first for democracy!

Here’s a little fantasy of mine. We have Sheffield First. We also have a Sheffield First for Investment, for Health, for Learning and Work, for Inclusion and for the Environment.

Given all the noise about active citizenship, participation in planning, etc – shouldn’t we also have a Sheffield First for Participation? Or – God forbid! – Sheffield First for Democracy? It would probably cost less than just one of the grants that Sheffield First for Investment facilitates for a large organisation to move in to the region. It would do the work of turning the fine sentiments that the ODPM and the Home Office espouse into reality – auditing participation, working out who needs basic skills support to participate, who is excluded, and who perhaps has an unfair advantage, due to having fully-paid public relations and public affairs managers, who’s full-time job it is to tip the balance their way?

‘We don’t want professionalisation of grass-roots democracy!’

No! No, we don’t! We already have that. Political parties are one example, but there are others. Sorry to go on about him... but I'm going to! Putnam uses the idea of a difference between a 'ground war' and 'air war' strategy. A ground-war is grass-roots politics; an air-war is when a party gets bumph through your letter-box, articles in the paper and their faces on TV. It’s not participatory – we’re just consumers of politics who tick boxes at elections.

Another way to think about it would be this: it’s a good job we didn’t get a regional assembly, because as grass-roots participation stands today, it would do little more than provide another locus of power for the usual suspects to fight over. It would do little or nothing to engage people. If, however, it was something that became a tangible desire of many people, through engagement and argument over a period of time – if it grew out of that – then perhaps it could have legitimacy. The same applies to the kind of local participation we've been discussing here.

Lack of participation is a mutually reinforcing process: disengagement puts more load upon government officials, and disconnects them from accountability. Equally, citizens then become more disillusioned and tend to see local and national government as corrupt and beholden to special interests.

There are also plenty of academic studies of participation – and these not a great deal of use either, on the ground. That’s why it’s good to see case studies on the ‘active citizen’ website.

This imaginary Sheffield First for Democracy would help organisations doing community training for participation. Vitally, it would also add something else to ‘Learning and Work’ – since, at the moment, Sheffield First for Learning and Work says that it –

“Provides the lead in developing and implementing a citywide strategy for learning, promoting improved educational and training achievement, developing and implementing a citywide strategy for efficient labour market operation in the city.”

Learning – dare I say it? – isn’t just about efficiency in the labour market. Getting people back to work is a laudable goal, but supporting people through learning to be active citizens is at least as important. (Imagine what a learndirect-type organisation would look like if was run by New Internationalist…)

Educational background is the strongest predictor of civic engagement (another Putnam finding.) A lack of education can be a big barrier to civic participation, to being an active citizen.

But a lack of basic skills should never exclude anyone from taking part in thinking about and addressing complex issues that are important to them. Could we imagine a world where we dealt with these barriers by involving as many people as possible, regardless of educational background, and offering support to those who need it? Participants could be the chief executive of Sheffield First, and they could be your next door neighbour.

Such an approach offers another route into learning skills : one that values the views of community members, and doesn’t simply treat such training in economic terms.

Ah, but it’s just my little fantasy. But you’d think, the amount of fuss that the Good and the Great make about democracy, we’d see serious resources devoted to making it a reality, not just a box-ticking exercise. (Isn’t that why we went to war with Iraq - to bring 'em democracy? Didn't that cost several tens of billions? Ha ha! I think I see a better way to spend the money!)

And don’t forget - more civic engagement equals healthier and more vibrant local economies. More civic engagement-focused education therefore equals more vibrant economies. It makes economic sense – for the local economy. For a large sandwich-packing company, of course, it might not make so much sense.

Imagine what could be done in a regeneration area. As part of the process of investigating the local economy, a group could be working to develop a food strategy, which might come up with a locally-led business plan for a market that supplied food needs that other shops couldn’t. This could build capacity for local people to run it. A study could show that, if such a store had a cashpoint, it could afford to stay open 24 hours a day – because 50% of all money from cashpoints is spent in local shops. Or perhaps it would look for national best practice, like Manchester’s recent organic fruit and veg delivery van, which is helping old people especially access a healthy diet?

One could also imagine a situation where local organisations were given support to be involved in the tendering process for contracts. Again – where large developers are coming in, with many full-time staff devoted to cherry-picking the juicy contracts, local people, local traders - and therefore local economies – are at a disadvantage. This process could lead to a local master plan that was far from bland. For example, it might say –

“… to bring radical improvements to the food available in the area, by working with local unemployed people to develop a social economy business plan for a food store that sources from local markets, from which a local delivery van supplies the area, benefiting the elderly particularly, and where a cashpoint could be sited securely.”

“… to bring radical improvements to housing, whilst offering affordable rents, by building capacity in the building trades for local people to work on building their own homes. This process will take longer than demolition and rebuild, but a recent participative study has shown that it will mean a much more sustainable, vibrant and economically healthy community in the long term.”

There’s a case to be made for redressing the balance away from the abstract – an economic and regeneration case, not just a fluffy democratic people-power case. Local thriving economics and local democracy are not opposed. They work together.

To end...

Just a little historical footnote to end with. A book I found in the local studies library a while back had an article entitled, ‘The Lower Don Valley – Will Development Bring Deliverance?’, written in 1989 by Jude Windle. (Anyone know who that is? Apart from that they’re green-inclined, I have no idea…) It makes for interesting reading. This is long time ago, of course! The days when David Blunkett was writing books on how to bring Spanish worker’s co-operative ideas to Sheffield, and when he was setting up co-operative development bodies as part of the council, were not so far behind us.

One hopes that much has changed since Jude was writing – that all the talk of civil renewal, active citizens and participation in the planning process will actually come to something this time round. This article has offered some ideas on how this could actually happen. Let’s wait and see…

“What is going on in the lower Don Valley? Once the heartland of Sheffield’s steel industry, the area seems to have lain fallow for years, part of the post-industrial wilderness. Now all the talk is of ‘development’ and ‘regeneration’ and rising land prices. Glossy brochures give artist’s impressions of the Valley in the 1990s; we are told it is set to play a vital role in ‘putting Sheffield back on the map.’ But what really lies behind all the hype?

“… A vast slab of the Lower Don Valley is under the control of the Sheffield Development Corporation, set up by central government complete with planning powers and public money to spend. What price local democracy when central government can effectively remove an area of land from the control of the council for seven years? The rationale behind Urban Development Corporations is that they do the business of regeneration fast. Huge injections of public money for private development, unfettered by the tedious business of accountability to locals. Other UDCs have a poor job creation record, and the jobs that are created often don’t go to local people.

“The SDC periodically delivers its ‘SDC News’ to homes around the Lower Don, full of promises of tree-lined roads and new jobs. But the reality is it has served Compulsory Purchase Orders on many small businesses, and the local business community felt so threatened by it that it has formed an organisation of its own to monitor the actions of the SDC and try to protect its interests. The likely beneficiaries of the SDC are not the ordinary local people or those who have set up small-scale ventures in the true spirit of self-help ‘regeneration’; more likely they will be property investors and large-scale developers.”