Objectives
This unit aims to enable students to understand:
| • | The ways in which different opinions are taken into account for local planning issues |
| • | The difficulties involved in reaching a compromise when interested groups have differing objectives. |
| Case-Study 1: Darlington Football Club | |
| Town-centre traffic was brought to a standstill when residents took their protest against a 23,000 seater stadium onto the streets. About 200 people on foot, horseback and in cars joined the protest against the club's choice of site. | |
| Their aim was to demonstrate how congested the road would become if the stadium was built at the east end of Neasham Road. The residents are concerned over noise, traffic fumes and violence between rival fans, and think the area would become an 'over-spill' car park for supporters. The march started as Darlington kicked off their match against Brighton at 3pm on a Saturday. Effectively blocking off one lane of the road, the convoy forced hundreds of cars to queue along one of the main routes in and out of the town. | |
| Protestor Marcus Nimmo said, 'We are not against having the stadium in Darlington, we just don't want it on this site, we have shown the kind of traffic problems it would cause if it was built.' |
| Case-Study 2: Villa Park | |
| Some local residents were opposed to Aston Villa's plans to expand its stadium so that it encroached on to Aston Park - an important heritage attraction and a well-used local amenity. In early September 1998, more than 2,000 people peacefully formed a human chain around the stadium to highlight the strength of community feeling against the Club's plans. | |
| Following this action, the draft local plan was revised several times before finally being approved. The Plan recommended that Aston Villa FC produce an alternative expansion proposal that would safeguard Aston Park. |
These case studies come from the Federation of Stadium Communities, which represents grassroots organisations from communities affected by stadiums. They support their members through publications, providing advice and networking. The example in this activity is based on another case, which is still under development in the London Borough of Islington. Some teachers felt this case should have been made anonymous but many of the local features make it easily identifiable and we decided to keep the specific references so that students could check updates if they were keen to see how the issue was developing in reality. The resources support a simulation for a meeting that took place as part of the local planning process in Islington.
The diagram of the planning process will help students understand the usual way in which planning applications are accepted. It is worth pointing out that local government is also proactive in this process in that it can create planning briefs, which spell out its vision of what acceptable local development would look like. These briefs can specify preferred uses of land as well as mechanisms for consulting with local organisations and residents. Islington was working with a planning brief, against which proposals from the developers were to be judged. There is a summary of this document in the case-study materials for these lessons. The planning brief is helpful to the developers as it indicates the likely parameters within which they should draw up their proposals. It also provides a useful focus point for both developers and local people to lobby the council and have their ideas and opinions reflected in it. A summary of the Islington brief (Source A), and a response from a community organisation (Source C) illustrate this process.
The activity should allow students to understand how difficult it is to devise large projects such as football stadiums and please all the affected groups. This learning point should make it easy to then move on to look at local planning issues that affect the communities of which students are members. Planning consultations are also a useful way to involve students in local affairs and demonstrate that there is a forum in which local citizens can have their opinions heard.
Photocopying/Printing
At first glance this option seems to require a lot of photocopying/printing but the activity does not get bogged down with paper, as students are clear about what they need and when they use it. The sources are best copied or printed onto coloured card and distributed to each group, rather than to every individual. They can be easily cleared away when the debate starts to leave space for other paperwork that the students might need during the discussion.