Some thoughts on that great bugbear, ‘community consultation’, emerge from the leaflet for the exhibition ‘Sense of Place: Learning Towns’ at the wonderful Lighthouse where the Academy of Urbanism congress is taking place. Two questions about consultation:
1. Isn’t there a danger of raising expectations and then not delivering—-or taking a very long time to deliver? No, not if you focus on people’s hopes and needs, rather than on fixed solutions.
2. Why should experts(in design & planning)  listen to amateurs (the people)? Because ‘ the people’ are world experts on their own lives.