Big City Plan public consultation - who’s in?

Other than Birmingham Central’s summaries, I haven’t seen much (maybe I’m looking in the wrong place?).

I was beginning to think I was never going to get any text content to get my teeth into to start some online dialogue of what this thing is all about.

A lot of people I speak to either don’t know about it, think it’s already happened or think it’s not for them - wrong on all counts!

Yesterday I went to an update briefing by Philip Singleton who’s one of the main people in charge of the plan - here’s a summary of what was said online about it. I was tweeting some of it from the front row, but it was unclear what I was allowed to publish and what I wasn’t. Here’s the thrust of it in micro-blogs and text notes from my iPhone. Philip tells me that the presentation he gave is going to be online with him doing a voiceover recording too (not sure when).

Top things to know about the Big City Plan

The Big City Plan is going out to ‘public consultation’ for eight weeks starting December 12th.

This means that anyone can have a say in the plan for the next 25 years of Birmingham. Yes - I mean anyone. And that means that everyone should be interested.

This is a unique opportunity to say what you want our city to be like in the future.

Quite seriously, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for anyone who’s passionate about Birmingham to have a say in what we need to make the place better.

This isn’t just a plan for where we put the roads and buildings.

Since early on it was clear to me that this plan isn’t just about the built environment, it’s about the experience of living in the city, the concept of the place, the culture, the people that live here and designing systems and structures that enable us to live better lives here. What really really worried me was when I actually got laughed at around the table (some pretty clued up people I would have thought) for using the word Psychogeography. And no offence to Phil for not knowing what it is but if the planners don’t even know what this means then how can there possibly any real thinking on mixing artistic ideas into the plan. It seems to me we need some artists and creative people to take a look at this plan and come up with some unexpected ideas. I still go back to Sandra Hall’s idea of the Mistressplan in response to what was then being called the Masterplan.

They love bloggers.

They are very interested in now getting lots of people discussing the plan. I made the point that at the time of the last consultation like this (1988) the medium had to be printed sheets of paper. In 2008 the medium has to be at last in part digital - and lets face it, bloggers are getting more traffic than the big boys with the deep pockets in this city nowadays.

The case has been made for Creativity - what do we want now?

We’ve all been working hard to make sure that creativity is included in all of the city’s thinking and decision-making. There’s still a lot of talk about ‘the creative quarters’, but Philip said that to support the creative industries in Birmingham it’s not about building buildings and planning, it’s about economic policy. So we’re on the radar as being important - now the challenge is on us to decide what interventions (or lack of) would be good to help us to continue to grow.

They like the idea of a Creative Director.

We’ve been talking about this one for a while now, and we have Michael Wolff coming to give a masterclass this evening (5.30pm at Fazeley Studios - free). Big news for this idea! Does it have legs then?

I’m concerned about how they’re going to use the web.

With apologies to the team, the Big City Plan website so far seems to have been hampered by a lack of content being generated through the planning process, and we’re left with a very dry, not updated, RSS-free site that whilst well structured and accessible is not really pushing out new content regularly. With the consultation happening in only three weeks and a new site being launched, I guess we hope that it’ll be whizz-bangy in the smart use of free tools. But you know how it goes - councils move slowly. [Update: just spoke to Debra Davis who's in charge of communications for the council. They are going to be using Limehouse to support a formal consultation process through web and mobile, that gets fed into a structured process for collating formal responses to the consultation. I'm guessing the tool isn't conversational in approach, so is this where we fit in as bloggers? To provide the online conversation/debate, and then have some formal responses end up being submitted either individually or as a group? ]

How about we do something ourselves?

They’ve asked for consultation - I say we give them consultation! There are some very smart and opinionated people in this city, and I think that getting us together to pool our thinking would be amazing. And with something as easy to understand as “What do you want Birmingham in 25 years to be like?” and huge issues like sustainability, transport, fuel crisis, energy, food, population, technology, communications, education, where we live, what we want from our public spaces, culture, creativity and lots more to consider this feels like one for the bloggers to really get our teeth into.

What would be the right online tool to pool opposing opinions on the plan?

I’m expecting the responses to the plan to be in the form of some kind of questionnaire, maybe some video clips to spark conversation, and maybe a blog or two. Early on a few of us suggested a wiki as a way of getting discussion going. John Bounds pointed out on Twitter that a wiki wouldn’t be the best way, but perhaps we should think about some other format and using my new rapid web startup tools throw it together and see what happens. I think of it as the internet community responding to the plan and saying what we think should happen. I mean - for Pete’s sake (literally) why haven’t we got free city-wide WIFI yet?

So who’s in?

I’m putting this out there just to see what the response is, but the idea of a concerted, unexpected and exciting online response I think is a valid one. I put a few messages on Twitter and got a great response from the people I’m friends with on there. But that’s quite a small group of people! If you’re interested in what I’m talking about, leave a comment below and we’ll see what we can make happen. I’ll also be talking about this at the Social Media Cafe on Friday if anyone wants to chat about it.

Here’s what I said on Twitter:

We have one big opp to say what we want our city to be like in 25 years. Fountains? Squares? Art gallery? Music venues? Everything about 15 hours ago from twitterrific

To explain. Big options and issues. Whole neighboutroods and areas to be redeveloped. Creative used about ten times in the presentation about 15 hours ago from twitterrific

Once I know more about what’s happening with big city plan we will throw up an open source site with everything there for us to respond to about 15 hours ago from twitterrific

there is an eight week period starting ok 12 dec where we can all influence the plan for the next 25 years of the city. Who’s up for it? about 16 hours ago from twitterrific

Philip Singleton who’s running the big city plan thinks that a creative director or otganistion to do that is an excellent idea about 16 hours ago from twitterrific

@ deplorableword yes. Philip singleton says that there is a 12 pager, short videos and a new site coming. I think we should build a wiki! about 16 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to deplorableword

At big city plan briefing. New website soon and public consultation on 12 December. Any questions before it goes out? They like bloggers about 17 hours ago from twitterrific

Anyone else interested? Leave me a comment and let’s see what we can make happen.