Dr. Alison Hough:

I will respond to some of the comments that have been made about public participation. Public participation is not about making everybody happy or gaining 100% consensus for decisions. It is about asking people their opinions but is primarily about accountability for power exercised in order that we avoid bad decisions. If bad decisions are made that breach the law or people's fundamental human rights, we can call power to account. We do not need to look to Europe to see backsliding on those principles. With the general heads of the housing and planning and development Bill 2019 and the more recent Planning and Development Bill 2023, we have seen significant inroads on those rights that are recognised by the European Court of Human Rights as fundamental and human rights. There is still a tendency to treat public participation and access to justice as either nuisances or nice to have, and they are not. One message I would like to hammer home is that it is about accountability and giving people respect by asking their opinions. If you do not have those two things, you will have bad decisions and a bad plan that does not do what is supposed to do and will not work. That is the fundamental point of having a wide public debate.