Comment: why planning debates have lost sight of the public interest

Abuses characterise the operation of local democracy in many parts of the UK with intimidation, bullying or conflicts of interest among lobbying companies, developers and local authorities promoting contentious development, writes Anna Minton.

Making decisions in “the public interest” is the justification for the planning system, but these routine abuses, which reflect the failure of democracy, are undermining the public interest. For instance, a lobbyist working to promote the pro-High Speed 2 “Campaign for High Speed Rail” described how the campaign set out to diffuse and intimidate the very vocal local opposition to the scheme, aiming to “shit them up”.

Speaking at a conference of distinguished guests in 2012, the lobbyist went on to explain other lobbying strategies for winning the case for HS2: how they create compelling stories designed to change the parameters of the debate. They didn’t want the HS2 “narrative” to be about shaving minutes off journey times to Birmingham and in the process cutting through swathes of countryside. The debate they sought to create was about pitting wealthy people in the Chilterns worried about their hunting rights, against working class people in the north. The strategy was “posh people standing in the way of working class people getting jobs” the lobbyist said.

The lobbyist went on to explain how they enlisted support for HS2 with a bus tour of the big northern cities, working with celebrities, local radio and high status politicians with the aim of enthusing local people to tell 1,000 stories about just how good high speed rail would be.

Also in the conference audience was an academic who was shocked by the “cold, militaristic approach” outlined and the use of intimidation and threats promoted by the lobbyist.

“This is a debate which is tricky and nuanced. But this wasn’t open at all, it was very coldly targeted and very strategic in the way that images were put forward,” said the academic. “That’s the way PR works but it was so calculating. I came away thinking this has implications for the way democratic debate develops in this country, particularly the element about the scaring the living daylights out of people.”

The lobbying company leading the pro-HS2 campaign is Westbourne Communications, whose employees James Bethell and Lucy James were described on the invite list as representing the Campaign for High Speed Rail. The campaign has a website which says it represents employers from across the country, listing under the section “Who is behind the campaign?” a long list of business luminaries. Under the Contact Us section is an address with a box number and a mobile phone number. Nowhere is there any mention of James Bethell, Lucy James or Westbourne Communications. 

Asked about Westbourne’s tactics to “shit them up” in reference to local opponents, Bethell said: “I literally can’t remember what you’re talking about.” He added: “It’s all about context – those three words could mean anything depending on the context.”

Fake campaigning

Although the Campaign for High Speed Rail is run by lobbyists, it has been set up to give the impression that it is a grassroots campaign of concerned employers, local businesses and local residents. This is an example of what is known as “astroturfing” – fake grassroots campaigning – a lobbying technique which gained notoriety in the 1990s when American lobbyists for the tobacco industry set up front groups to defend smoker’s rights. A well-known example was the National Smokers Alliance created by lobbyist Burston Marsteller with funding from Philip Morris.

The Republican Tea Party movement in the US, described as “the biggest Astroturf operation in history”, has utilised similar techniques with American billionaires the Koch brothers funding an apparently grassroots group called Americans for Prosperity which mobilised opposition to Obama’s healthcare reforms and was instrumental in the organisation of Tea Party events. 

Bethell and James described how Westbourne created its own “mini army” to refute opposition to HS2 and focused on a two-pronged strategy of galvanising support from the business community while starting campaigns at a local level.

Westbourne is a bullish lobbying firm which is unusually open in advertising its aggressive approach. Speaking on Radio Four’s Beyond Westminster Bethell continued his use of military metaphors, describing activists against development as insurgents. He told political correspondent David Grossman: “You’ve got to fight them on every street corner… You’ve got to win the ground and then hold it. You can’t just sit in your fortress and watch your opponents run around doing what they like. You’ve got to get out into the bush, using their tactics and being in their face.”

The language used by Bethell might sound extreme but the use of astroturfing, front companies and routine abuses of the democratic system are an everyday occurrence in local authority areas all around Britain. Today, these questionable activities are so common that they are an entrenched part of the system.

In a recent House of Commons debate on the transparency and ethics of lobbying, Labour MP Thomas Docherty, a former lobbyist, shared with Parliament some of the techniques of his former colleagues. For example, he told of lobbyists impersonating journalists and calling politicians to establish their views on supermarket provision in their area, either during or before the lodging of planning applications for a major supermarket. 

He also recounted stories of lobbyists being planted in public meetings to heckle those who opposed his clients’ schemes or to whip up opposition to other people’s schemes, often on unfounded grounds. The same lobbyist, Docherty explained, also “has the interesting habit of putting up candidates for council elections… standing four or five people to get them the jobs of chair, secretary and planning secretary, to make sure that his clients receive favour,” behaviour which Docherty described as “utterly unacceptable”, although “not a crime.”

However, such tactics remain difficult to document, being at the same time both ubiquitous and obscure with lines of accountability purposely blurred. Tax avoidance offers a good parallel because like tax avoidance – or indeed the expenses scandal – most of the activities of councils, developers and lobbyists are not actually illegal, although instances of planning meetings packed with actors and fake letter writing campaigns from non-existent supporters of controversial schemes are undoubtedly unethical.

But while not illegal, there is no doubt that much of this behaviour undermines the spirit if not the letter of the law, as “the public interest” remains the justification for the planning system. The question is, where do these tactics by PR and lobbying companies, retained by councils and business interests, leave the democratic process?

The public interest is the justification for the planning system but these abuses, which reflect the failure of democracy, are undermining the public interest. A redefinition of the public interest in planning, which places far greater account on social value, is needed.

This is an edited extract from Scaring the Living daylights out of people: the local lobby and the failure of democracy by Anna Minton, published by SpinWatch. Anna Minton is the 1851 Royal Commission Fellow in the Built Environment.