How to Consult the Public

Rowan soon to be in blossom

A comment on the blog yesterday from a participant in the recent facilitation process illustrates the annoyance felt by those of us who were involved. We all wondered whether it was worthwhile taking part, when invited. After all, the conservation/wildlife people had shown no interest in listening to our views before. They had displayed the kind of consciously aloof we-know-best attitude of a newly qualified professional brashly ventiring out into the real world. But they had been so effusive in imploring us to come along to these new meetings - and there would be cakes and tea as well!

So maybe, some of us thought, we could use the sessions to get across how we valued the site and demonstrate that farmification was just not right for Blacka and that the sooner they rolled up their dreadful barbed wire and took it home the better. So we asked questions about the process. What did it entail? How long? How many meetings? Would there be minutes? What would be covered? Answers that came back were vague and impenetrable. We were referred to the facilitator-in-chief who would "love to talk to us" but when approached he wasn't that keen. All of us were suspicious. Some said no way, we're only contributing to their publicity agenda enabling them to say to potential backers that they have "engaged in meaningful discussions with all people and done all they can to reach agreement" and similar flannel. Others said what have we got to lose? We have a good case, go for it. So some of us went ahead and participated.

After the first meeting, three hours with tea and cakes and the opposition trying to be very nice and reasonable, we felt none the wiser. Then a Freedom of Information request to the council revealed that a meeting had been held of the officers and public servants responsible for pushing through the unpopular policy. They had got together prior to these sessions, ostensibly unknown to us poor deluded members of the public who are daft enough to pay their salaries. And they had discussed in their enclave how best to handle the difficulties posed by a petition opposing their plans. In the course of their meeting they had determined that the petition had been 'canvassed' by only 6 people and that this meant they could relax happy in the knowlege that the 700 plus people who had signed were mere dupes who had gone along with the wishes of a group of hotheads. They should feel no conscience therefore in dismissing the petition. It was obviously of no consequence to them that the 6 people organising the petition were actually regular walkers on Blacka Moor while to some of them it was simply a placename on a form. Nor that the signatures were amassed on Blacka at unmanned petitioning points where people were trusted to respect the process. People who are well versed in manipulating suspect everyone else of doing the same! (If I've learned one thing from this it is that I'm an innocent abroad who should not be let out alone.)

The conclusion of this officers' meeting was that they should go ahead with this new facilitation but not negotiate the contentious issue, ie the farmification policy of fencing and grazing. They would tell the facilitator what to do and what to cover in the meetings beforehand but let it be believed that he was totally independent.

I feel the need to repeat at this point that these people are paid as public servants to represent the best interests of those paying their salaries. At the first meeting we had all been feeling our way and we had wanted to know that there was proper openness about the process and that things were not being steered or manipulated by a hidden agenda. We had been made to feel unduly and even unhealthily suspicious and told that we had to go forward on the basis of mutual trust.

So when the 2nd session opened and one member raised the matter of the minutes of the officers' meeting the result was a very difficult meeting.