Consulting Communities

The construction of New Zealand’s first toll highway due to open in 2009 has generated a significant community relations program. The consultation effort is providing information to residents along a seven mile route in the Auckland area.

How the highway construction has been communicated might hold lessons for others involved in infrastructure and environmental projects. These lessons include:

• Community consultations often stop once a project gets the green light. But community relations - telling people what is happening and accommodating their concerns - really finishes when the project finishes and all the teething problems are resolved.
• It’s the communicator’s job to identify communications risks and opportunities to project management. He or she must be at the table with engineers, planners and others from the start so community issues get the same attention as legal and other considerations.
• Everyone working on the project – from the top boss to the plant operator – has to be briefed and buy into the community relations plan. Careless actions at any level can alienate a community and prejudice a project.
• The communicator should work on the premise that you can never give people too much information when a project is likely to impact on their environment or quality of life.
• Provide enough communications channels so everyone affected by the project receives information. Accurate, coordinated and timely information is the lifeblood of these channels.

The days of the old style town hall meeting as a communications channel could well be over. People are often too busy to gather in large groups to hear about a project. And besides, vocal critics can hijack public meetings to the exclusion of others genuinely wanting to find out what's happening and to air their concerns. Other types of meetings include:

• Neighbours meeting in someone’s home for very localized briefings.
• Inviting people to drop by the project office for regular updates.
• Offering telephone briefings at convenient times.
• Offering to speak to established local groups at their meetings.
• Staffing displays in shopping centres or other high traffic areas.
• Community kiosks where people can drop in to see what is happening.
• Working with residents' panels that include critics as well as supporters.
• Special websites or webpages.
• Email to deliver tailored information to particular groups.
• Project-specific blogs where people can comment.
• Holding site inspections when projects hit milestones.
• A regular project newsletter.
• Localized letterbox drops.
• A 24/7 toll free number so people can talk to someone who can speak authoritatively.
• Passing information through local media.
  

Critics might say all this is just too expensive. But in the long run a genuine approach to consultations might be far cheaper than facing legal or political challenges from disaffected communities who feel they have been neglected.