URBAN STREAM REHABILITATION

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URBAN STREAM REHABILITATION
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Social appraisal and Public
Involvement
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• The aim of this presentation is to help you to
  think about social appraisal and public
  involvement
• what it is
• why to do it
• and the choices to make in deciding how to do it.

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• Driving forces for rehabilitation
• amenity value
• social well being
• Main objectives
• preserving the landscape
• easy, safe, and affordable public access to the
  riverfront. Access by foot, bike, public
  transport, or boat available to all.
• making the river visually accessible as well as
  physically accessible

8. Social appraisal and public involvement
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Article 14, Water Framework Directive, 2000

• This specifies that Member States shall
  encourage the active involvement of all
  interested parties in the implementation of the
  Directive and development of river basin
  management plans.

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• Social appraisal and Public Involvement

Contents

• Legal requirements for public participation
• Stakeholders and Identification of Stakeholders
• Informing stakeholders
• Involving Stakeholders

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• Social appraisal and Public Involvement

Legal requirements

• legal requirements for public information and
  involvement have been mentioned for almost half
  of the projects
• how did project managers deal with this
  legislation? Involvement ranges from public
  information to comprehensive participation of
  diverse stakeholder groups

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• Social appraisal and Public Involvement

Legal requirements
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Defining a stakeholder

• Public participation guidance for the Water
  Framework Directive says that stakeholders are
• Any person, group or organisation with an
  interest or "stake" in an issue, either because
  they will be directly affected or because they
  may have some influence on its outcome.
• Members of the public who are not yet aware that
  they will be affected.

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• Social appraisal and Public Involvement

Listing Stakeholders

• citizen residents, property owners
• NGOs on national, regional and local level
• commercial associations (Anacostia River Business
  Coalition)
• Politicians (Isar)

• Identification of stakeholders (Kaitzbach,
  Skerne)

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• Social appraisal and Public Involvement

Stakeholders
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What you might want from stakeholders

• What you want Example
• Action Are you interested in helping
  
  
• with..
• Opinion Which option should we go for?
• Ideas How could we make this
  area
• more attractive?
• Information Where do children play?
• Understanding Can I explain that....

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• Social appraisal and Public Involvement

Increasing Stakeholders understanding

• increase of social awareness and appraisal
• first step to public participation

• Guided tours
• Information boards onsite
• Exhibitions
• Installations

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• Social appraisal and Public Involvement

Methods for increasing understanding
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Finding out what stakeholders think and want

• Prove It! is a ready made social appraisal tool
  developed by nef (the new economics foundation),
  in the UK.
• This has been tried and tested over several
  years.
• Prove It! is most relevant to
• Smaller projects
• Participative projects
• Projects interested in the effect of urban
  waterways projects on social capital.

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What is social capital?

• In simple terms Trust in other people.
• In more detail Networks, norms,
  relationships, values and informal sanctions that
  shape the quantity and co-operative quality of a
  societys social interactions.

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Prove It! and evaluation

• Likely also to be used to look back on and review
  a project
• Works best for projects where the desired
  evaluation is formative (that is, learning as you
  go along) rather than summative (demonstrating
  impact at the end of the project).

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Prove It! the options

• Use Prove It! only with the project participants
• Use Prove It! also with the wider community
• Use Prove It! but adapt it
• So that you can do a statistical analysis
• To include a wider range of indicators. See Work
  Package 10 for some suggestions.

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Alternatives to Prove It!

• The Public Participation Guidance for the Water
  Framework Directive contains a variety of methods
  in annex 1.
• Nef publication, Participation Works!, can be
  freely downloaded at http//www.neweconomics.org/
  gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?PID16
• Appraisal techniques that it includes
• Community appraisals
• Community indicators
• Participatory appraisal
• Planning for Real

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Sources on surveys and statistics

• This is very well covered on the free Research
  Aids section of www.surveysystem.com.
• There is additional material in a handbook on
  Prove It! which can be downloaded from the nef
  website at http//www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_p
  ublicationdetail.aspx?pid2 This provides more
  specialized advice in the urban renewal context.

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Tools in the Prove It! toolkit

• A project Storyboard, for understanding how a
  projects intended activities will lead to change
• A Survey Questionnaire that can be completed at
  the start and end of a project, both by project
  participants and by members of the wider
  community.
• A Poster Evaluation Session, for people involved
  in or affected by the project, so that they can
  reflect on the impacts a project has made and the
  lessons that have been learnt.

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How the tools are presented

• On the website of the UK Countryside Agency at
  http//greenspace.net.countryside.gov.uk (You
  will need to register.)
• Through a series of MS Word and Excel documents
  combining the materials (Spreadsheets,
  Questionnaire, Poster) and instructions on how
  best to use them.
• If you have any difficulties, email
  Perry.Walker_at_neweconomics.org

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What people like about Prove It!

• Flexibility
• Ease of use
• Provides a framework and structure
• Helps with community participation
• Seems to capture the effect of a project on
  social capital
• I think its fantastic. It assists its not a
  burden. It isnt dry either it helps you to be
  imaginative about the project.

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Example from a rowing and canoeing project in
London

• One parent commented
• The exposure to different people outside of
  the community and new experiences all help to
  form well rounded children and adults of the
  future