Community Engagement in the UK: Failing to engage the community in infrastructure projects has severe consequences including delays, costs, and in some cases the collapse of the project. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) has noted that poor stakeholder management was a major factor in 23% of major project failures between 2019-2023. In this piece we will explore various examples of failures that result from lack of community consultation and engagement.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel Crisis (2016-2018):
The £4.2 billion Thames Tideway project was met with stiff community resistance because the community was not engaged early enough. People in Bermondsey and Southwark said they were being ‘steamrolled’ by the consultation process at the beginning. First, the project team’s focus was on technical details of the project and not on the needs of the community in terms of noise, traffic, and air pollution.
The consequences were severe:
Delayed start of critical construction phases by eight months. This was coupled with £270 million in extra mitigation costs. Three community groups filed legal suits against the project. The consultation had to be completely re-designed. The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) pointed to this case in their 2019 best practice guide and argued that if early stage engagement had been conducted, 76% of the problems that arose could have been avoided.
Manchester Clean Air Zone Implementation (2022)
Manchester’s Clean Air Zone implementation shows how mismanaging public engagement can ruin environmentally friendly projects. The consultation process did not fully address the concerns of small business owners and residents when it came to the proposal that would affect 493,000 vehicles in Greater Manchester.
According to IPA data:
Stagging of the project’s costs by 34% in the delay to its implementation. Consumer trust dropped from 68% to 23%. 89% of the respondents said they felt that they had been excluded from the decision-making process. The project had to be totally re-designed in 2023 and the NIC found out that if the right engagement had been done initially, £142 million would not have been spent on revisions.
Bristol MetroWest Railway Extension
The MetroWest Phase 1 project reveals how community resentment is born out of poor community engagement. It also failed to involve the people of Pill and Portishead in the noise management and parking strategies. The IPA’s 2022 review revealed: Increase in the project timeline by 47% Increase in costs by £56 million. 15,000 person hours of staff time that could have been dedicated to something else to address issues that could have been identified early.
East Leeds Orbital Route (ELOR)
ELOR is a good example which shows that when initial community engagement was poor, the project was later corrected. The first meeting that took place in 2018 was mentioned to have been poor by the participants and hence: – A three-month work stoppage. £3.2 million in initial delay costs. Damage of the local authority’s reputation (stakeholders’ trust was affected minus 42%).
However, when the project team decided to perform another round of stakeholder engagement, they set up community forums and this led to; Increased public support by 84%; reduced judicial review risks; £12.8 million in saved mitigation costs because they were identified early.
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Failure and Lessons from It
The Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s assessment of community engagement failures shows the following:
- Timing: Some 82% of the projects that received strong backlash from the community began their engagement process as decisions were being made.
- Depth: The results showed that teams who spent less than 5% of their pre-construction budget on community engagement faced three times more likely opposition.
- Representation: The NIC established that projects that did not involve the hard-to-reach population suffered twice as much from legal challenges.
- Transparency: The projects that received a poor rating on information accessibility suffered delays that were 40% longer than those that received a good rating.
Financial Impact
The National Infrastructure Commission’s 2023 report establishes the financial impact of poor community engagement:
On average, a project would be delayed by 2.3 years. Further, the costs would be 23-38% of the original budget. This is according to our finding that every major challenge incurs £2.4 million in legal expenses. The costs of repairing the company’s image were also extremely high at £850,000 per project.
Future Implications
The Infrastructure and Projects Authority forecasts that UK infrastructure projects which will cost £650 billion in the next decade will all face similar problems if there is no change in the current approach to community engagement. Their analysis suggests: 34% of planned projects are at high risk of community opposition; The possible combined costs of delays – 28 billion pounds; The probability of judicial reviews has increased by 300%. It is therefore important to acknowledge that successful community engagement is about understanding the local context, offering real opportunities to influence, and sustaining communication through the life of the project.
The above examples show that when community engagement is incorporated as a core project component besides an administrative exercise, then huge financial and reputational risks can be avoided. The NIC states that successful community engagement is not about stopping opposition but results in improved projects through local knowledge and community partnership. Projects that accomplish this normally come in at 20-30% lower lifetime costs and very high public satisfaction rates.
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