Public Participation in Spatial Planning: improving processes and outputs
Venue
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
University of Luxembourg, Campus Belval
Luxembourg
Luxembourg
The workshop in Luxembourg focused on the public participation processes and how to integrate the outcomes of these processes in spatial planning strategies. The key questions discussed were:
- How can planners and policy-makers use these outputs in the drafting process of the Master Programme for Spatial Planning?
- What is the added value of public participation and how can it improve the final strategy?
- What makes a public participation process successful?
Mrs Pascale Junker from the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Infrastructure of Luxembourg opened the event and stressed the importance of public participation in the revision of the Luxembourg Master Programme for Spatial Planning. The Luxembourg context was presented to all the participants and has provided an interim overview of the outputs from the public participation process. This setting-the-scene was followed by a panel discussion in which other countries from the West Group (France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Ireland) were invited to comment on the Luxemburg case study from their own experiences in public participation in spatial planning. ESPON projects ACTAREA has also shared its research results and particularly the relationship (differences and similarities) between soft cooperation and public participation processes.
This workshop was concluded with an interactive discussion in four group works, based on the discussions that took place during the afternoon. Some testimonials and conclusions from the participants:
- “Public participation is a ‘risk’ with benefits”
- “Think what you want: vision, rules and (right) scale”
- “Different levels of participation: from informing and consulting until partnership, delegated power and citizen control”
- “Importance of ensuring a diverse group in public participation processes”
- “Contradicting inputs, over-simplification, strong lobbyism, ‘statism’ (lack of innovation) and the need for strong coordination are some of the main challenges for making public participation processes successful”
- “The implementation step is the real challenge”
The ESPON workshop that took place in Luxembourg on Regional Spatial Strategies was the third in a series of linked events forming a roadshow in 2018 on spatial planning – going from the methodology to content, citizen participation and implementation steps. This series of linked events aims at sharing experiences bringing different perspectives across the North-West Europe countries – France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. While all these countries operate in different contextual environments, they share common objectives in terms of spatial plans.
The following event of the roadshow will take place in Brussels on the 24th October 2018, focusing on the implementation of spatial strategies. The final event will take place in The Netherlands in 2019.