Estate Matters Episode 4: Anthony Downs - Charrettes: generating trust through community engagement

The director of one of Britain’s leading landed estates tells the Estate Matters podcast that ongoing engagement with communities can be the key to winning support for new ventures, from building houses to changing a right of way.

Anthony Downs of Hatfield Park, Hertfordshire, says adopting the charrette system, can often help to build relationships and trust, which can later lead to support and even advocacy for projects.

The word charrette is derived from old French to describe how students of architecture were invited to throw their ideas into a charrette, French for cart or chariot. Anthony, who has been at Hatfield Park for 24 years, helped to pioneer charrettes as a way of bringing communities together to debate and discuss local issues and identify opportunities to solve them collaboratively.

Describing the value of full consultation on planning proposals, he says:

“I’ve been lucky enough that when we’ve applied for planning consent in a number of places where charrettes have been held, whereas normally you would walk into a wall of opposition, we’ve been fortunate enough to have residents – or indeed whole communities – speaking up in favour of the development and saying: ‘we want that to happen.’”

It has become an essential tool for many estates and land managers to engage all interested parties in a proposal before plans have been firmly drawn. It means feedback from nearby residents or those affected by plans can be taken into account and, in many cases their views, will inform the final planning application.

Anthony said:

“Quite often those that come with an axe to grind at the start become advocates for the process and, indeed, enthusiasts for the end product.”

The podcast, the latest in the Estate Matters series launched by KOR to explain the issues facing landed estates and how communication can help, also hears Anthony’s and KOR’s Managing Director Annette Richman’s views on the importance of promoting the social value estates bring to their communities.

Anthony tells Estate Matters host, Anna Byles and Annette, that landed estates must stay relevant to their communities. He described Hatfield Park as “the glue that holds the old town [of Hatfield] and the new town together.”

Annette tells host Anna: “I think the value that our estates in Britain are offering to communities in pushing for improvements to the environment and to society as a whole, are huge and I think it’s really important they start talking about the work they are doing and not being embarrassed about it.”

Anthony concludes that engagement with communities could be described as “a licence to operate.”

He says: “That sounds quite brutal, but I think if we weren’t trusted by our communities, if we weren’t communicating the benefits and they weren’t understood, we would very quickly see the counter-side to the current relationship we enjoy.”