Sustainable Community Action
in: Tea rooms, Community involvement forum

Forum:A role for ordinary citizens in UK sustainable development

Sign in to edit
Forums: Index > Tea rooms > A role for ordinary citizens in UK sustainable development



Comment

2012

  • An imaginary open letter: To those who would ‘engage’ us…, August 9, 2012 By Mike realisedevelopment.net
  • Exposing the lie, 26th July 2012, by John Houghton, cles.org.uk

2011

Westminster World Heritage Site and Parliament Square a national disgrace, Hansard Society, October 25 [1] New vision putting citizen and visitor at its heart needed. place, topic


High Speed 2 consultation "a train wreck", say CPRE, 28 February [2]

Councils and hyperlocal ‘bloggers’: It’s the council system which needs changing, not how people are allowed to cover them, David Higgerson, February 23 [3]


Eric Pickles: Citizen journalists and bloggers should be let in to public council meetings, 23 February [4]


"If nothing else the transparency that the social web embodies and that government says it wants to deliver with #opendata means that we will no longer be able to hide our policy programmes in big black boxes that we only open up on launch day" Catherine Howe, January 23 [5]


Your comment - Contribute via our Forums or a comment type article, or on any article via its talk page - click on 'talk' link at top of page

This is a draft for posting to the current Defra wiki


The idea of an environmental contract may open up possibilities. Expressed as an understanding between government and citizens, it explicitly involves the latter. Whether or not it genuinely opens up possibilities depends on what type of role the government can envisage for citizens.


Since the contraction of Local Agenda 21, the field of sustainable development in England seems to have been dominated by professional and expert, remote and establishment elites.


To ordinary citizens and community groups interested in sustainability, recent government and establishment initiatives can seem like forever rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. No matter how cleverly experts talk amongst themselves, there won't be enough progress till there's genuine involvement and inclusion of ordinary citizens.


This is most apparent at local level, but the good thing is that it's here that there's probably the greatest potential to turn things around.


There's been a lot of rhetoric recently about devolution and localism, but much practice can seem to remain top down - however much people may object to that term. (Perhaps people object to it because it hits the nail on the head?)


For ordinary people and community groups to get genuine involvement and so achieve genuine influence, there must be fewer and fewer no-go areas - specifically the joined-up and the strategic. Because genuine sustainability must be about both of these, shallow, superficial, single-issue, piecemeal, tokenistic, short term or otherwise unsustained community involvement initiatives just won't be enough.


"Our central recommendation is that communications should be redefined across government to mean a continuous dialogue with all interested parties, encompassing a broader range of skills and techniques than those associated with media relations. The focus of attention should be the general public" - Recommendation no. 1 of the Phillis report, January 2004.

Related topics[]



Forum - Index - Tea rooms - Community involvement - Help desk

SCA Wiki - Places, projects & networks - Ideas Bank - News - Diary - Resources - Community / Avoid adverts

References

  • The Phillis report can be accesssed via Cabinet Office news
  • The original version of this article was first published on the Sustainable Community Action wiki.
  1. ↑ hansardsociety.org.uk,
  2. ↑ cpre.org.uk, 28 February 2011
  3. ↑ davidhiggerson, February 23, 2011
  4. ↑ communities.gov.uk, 23 February 2011
  5. ↑ curiouscatherine, January 23, 2011
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.