MARY BURNS AWARDS
DAY 20

THE COMMUNITY CONSULTATION OF THE YEAR AWARD PART 3

Are community consultations worth the paper they are written on? Do the community's views really count? The Mary Burns Community Consultation Awards not only ask these questions but also try and answer them.

In Part 1 we showed that the community's voice counted for less than 25% of the final decision, and in Part 2 we showed a group that didn't even exist being consulted, and an admission from the Leader of Salford City Council that the consultation, er, "hasn't been perfect". Now join us in Part 3 for twisted statistics and more…

Ladies and Gentlemen. THE COMMUNITY CONSULTATION OF THE YEAR AWARD PART 3…goes to…

Please do a drum roll and click here…

SALFORD CITY COUNCIL, SALIX HOMES and the CENTRAL SALFORD URBAN REGENERATION COMPANY – FOR THEIR FAB WORK ON THE ISLINGTON ESTATE.

Last February residents in Islington were asked to vote on five Options for the future of their estate. They voted for Options 2 and 3 with `a significant proportion of residents opposed to demolition', according to a report by consultants GVA Grimley.

What the residents eventually got was somewhere between Options 3 and 4, with significant demolition, because "the views of residents were then combined with additional stakeholder consultation, a financial appraisal and a review of the strategic regeneration criteria of the partner organisations Salford City Council, Central Salford Urban Regeneration Company (URC) and Salix Homes"…
 
The new `preferred option' was then presented to residents as a future that would see `85% of the existing homes retained and improved' and `just 15% of the estate demolished'. This is only true, of course, if you count every flat in the two big high rise towerblocks, Canon Hussey Court and Arthur Millwood Court, as a property in its own right. What they didn't shout about was that 60% of low rise homes (46 properties) on the estate were to be demolished.

The majority of residents, the consultants report explained, were actually `happy' with Option 1, with no major changes at all, just improvements to everyone's homes. But, as a further report by Salford Council noted, this option (keeping all social housing) was seen as "potentially harmful to the wider regeneration of the area". The `preferred option' of 60% low rise demolition "complements the redevelopment of Chapel Street into the future". 

Chapel Street is, of course, right next to Manchester city centre, and is seen as being the new up market `centre of Salford'. A view underlined by the majority of developers consulted who argued that they would only get involved if the whole estate was bulldozed…

Lo and behold, when the `preferred option' with its large amount of demolitions was put to the Government for PFI funding, it was rejected as it was "not transformational enough"… no doubt, because there was still some social housing left standing for poor people!

Community consultations – don't you just love 'em?

Ladies and Gentlemen. Break out your Monopoly boards for the winners of THE COMMUNITY CONSULTATION OF THE YEAR AWARD PART 3…

SALFORD CITY COUNCIL, SALIX HOMES and the CENTRAL SALFORD URBAN REGENERATION COMPANY

Applause…

If anyone from these organisations would like to make a speech please fill in the Comments box below