Urban tsunami coming to a field near you

LOCAL authorities need to stop planning on a piecemeal basis and start protecting "green infrastructure", such as parks, farmland and drinking water supplies close to cities, a leading ecologist has said. Read more.

The Community Planning website

This is an excellent resource which I have delved into before for ideas and tips. With the growing numbers of residents and communities becoming involved with professionals and planning agencies in shaping their local environment, the Community Planning website is as good a starting point as any for everyone concerned. The site includes information on general principles, methods (including the future search conferencing which I posted on earlier), scenarios, case studies and other sources of information. All this information is easily accessible and in a very practical 'how-to-do-it' approach and is of international scope and relevance.

More on participatory GIS

I posted earlier on the Ovalau participatory mapping exercise that the DSAP project was involved in during my time in Fiji. This nice little video, with lovely singing and images, is a good visual overview of the process. Note, it might take a while to access and connect to the video. Thanks to my friend Giacomo Ribaldi.

Mapping for change

I don't believe I have posted on participatory GIS before but I thought I might take the opportunity to plug my old workhorse, the Development of Sustainable Agriculture in the Pacific (DSAP) Project. DSAP was one of a number of partners that participated in a collaboration to assist the communities on the island of Ovalau to document and map their natural resources and intangible and tangible cultural heritage. The exercise was part of an effort to help the island of Ovalau seek UNESCO World Heritage listing. You can read more about the exercise here.

I am very happy to be able to say that the collaborative exercise was recently recognised internationally with a World Summit Award for 2007.

I have previously posted on participatorty planning. I wonder if there have been any interesting applications of participatory GIS (PGIS) in a rural context here in Ireland.

Teaching and learning participation at Queen's

I came across this interesting ' learning and teaching' participation-related article on the Queen's University, Belfast - School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering website. The article outlines a participatory planning project, adopting Future Search processes, with final year postgraduate students and staff in the School of Environmental Planning and other key stakeholders within the university.

'The learning objectives for the participatory project included the utilisation
of analytical, synthesising and presentational skills; enhanced understanding of large
group participatory planning methodologies; strengthened capacity to facilitate
discussion at small and large group scales; deeper understanding of the
relationship between planning theory and practice; an ability to build concensus
related to the identification of common ground and desired futures; and a
reinforced appreciation of the value of teamwork.'

The Queen's initiative has much in common with other global initiatives to learn and teach participation, many of which are captured on the Learning and Teaching for Transformation (LTT) website, which I have posted on before.

It would be interesting to know if this initiative is still ongoing in the School of Environmental Planning. It would be even better to know if there are any other similar initiatives within other disciplines at higher learning institutes in Ireland, north and south. It would be good to share these with the LTT initiative.

Participatory rural planning

The Institute of Spatial and Environmental Planning (ISEP) at Queen's University and the Rural Community Network (RCN) have got together to produce a useful toolkit for participatory rural planning. The kit consists of three data resource booklets (covering localities in East Down, West Tyrone and the western shores of Lough Neagh), two technical papers and a DVD/CD on the community preferences modelling process and three powerpoint presentations on settlement morphology, questionnaire data and the workshop processes. Copies of the toolkit are available from the Rural Community Network.

There are also an interesting short articles available online. One titled Participatory planning in Northern Ireland; the learning community approach is available from PLA Notes No. 38.

High Court ruling quashes decision on PPS14

The NI High Court today overruled an earlier decision by former Stormont Minister Lord Rooker on PPS14, the controversial planning policy for sustainable development in the countryside. In welcoming the decision, the Rural Community Network stated

"the move endorses the overwhelming position articulated by RCN’s 450 members
and supported through 700 individual responses made to RCN’s consultation on the
unpopular policy."

Commenting on the court’s judgement Michael Hughes RCN’s Chief Executive Officer stated that

“To date there has been limited investment in seeking to understand what makes
rural communities tick. This decision provides an opportunity for an exploration
of the factors that have shaped the existing rural settlement pattern as well as
creating the space for people to engage in informed and responsible
conversations around how people will live and work in the countryside of the
future.”

Looks like a more inclusive and rural community-led policy-making and planning process might get underway. What do you think? What are your views on the ruling?

Not sure what PPS14 is about, click here?

Want to know what rural communities in NI thought was wrong with it, click here?