Context 163 - March 2020

44 C O N T E X T 1 6 3 : M A R C H 2 0 2 0 plan. Non-expert visitors to a departmental open day were next asked ‘What is your favourite bit of Enfield’s heritage?’ Responses were informal, both written and spoken, often with accompanying stories of personal histories and reminiscence. Work started on creating participant workshops with the same question put to those attending. Several responses reflected on the suburban character of the borough, its industrial past and, again, its green spaces. Efforts were made to open the workshops up to harder-to-reach groups, including by advertising through the voluntary and community sector newsletter, although with limited uptake. Informal word-of-mouth communication was more effective. Those who attended included officers from planning, museum and archive services, representatives of heritage groups working across the borough, including in conservation areas and archaeology, Historic England, non-heritage community groups, an arts organisation, an artist, individuals working with local heritage on social media, and one with experience of heritage management inWest Africa. The diversity of experience and interest led to lively, at times heated, discussions with groups that developed ideas structured by four core themes. These were memory, vulnerability and loss; landscape, architecture and design; local studies and archives, museum collections and archaeology; and promotion and external funding. Facilitators observed and took notes. Participants were invited to contribute further ideas and material, and were advised at the workshops that a focus group would be held on a first draft of the document, drawn from the two workshops. This formally recognised workshop participants as co-creators of the document’s form and much of its content, allowing for substantial changes at first draft if required. Participants, who were unpaid, seemed concerned to actively limit their involvement to the workshop and focus group events, with ultimate authorial responsibilities resting with the council.Where this might seem like ‘placation’ on Arnstein’s ladder, it reflected constraints imposed by the participant group themselves. Internal engagement was also undertaken.Workshop priorities were then integrated with corporate priorities and statutory requirements in emerging drafts. Concentrated cross-departmental discussion refined objectives and aims with relevant officers. Early drafts were presented to strategic boards across a range of services including, museum and local studies, leisure and culture, property, parks, burials, highways, corporate strategy and housing, and the voluntary and community sector strategy meeting. At the same time as the new heritage strategy was being developed, initial work was already under way on the Regulation 18 issues and options draft new local plan for Enfield. As an outer London borough, Enfield is planning for an extraordinary increase in housing delivery figures from 395 units a year to something in the region of 2,400 a year. As internal engagement on the two documents progressed, the emerging local plan and heritage strategy became more closely aligned. Following the focus group, the draft strategy was taken to the council’s place and design quality review panel (PDQP), and further amendments made that highlighted the interdependency of the local plan and strategy. Feedback from the intensive engagement through workshops, focus groups and PDQP led to reframing heritage as a key part of good growth and successful place-making, and its associated importance for place attachment and creating a sense of place. Chapters in the local plan on heritage and design were moved to the front of that document in response. The decision that the heritage strategy should be developed as a supplementary planning document gave formal recognition to the active significance of heritage for growth. It was decided that consultation should be undertaken on both the draft new local plan and heritage strategy together. Arnstein’s view of consultation as participation is discouraging. Consultation is placed squarely within ‘token’ efforts to engage, keeping the balance of power with the authority. For this project, however, early participation in the development of the heritage strategy meant that consultation was already more than Arnstein’s definition, allowing consultation to extend beyond existing ‘stakeholder’ groups. The draft new local plan and draft heritage strategy were subject to public consultation between 5 December 2018 and 28 February 2019. The consultation Arnstein’s Ladder