Dump

the

Dump!

Understanding Public Concerns

at the Siting of in their

Waste Disposal Facilities

Neighbourhoods

A Note about the Research Study

This report is based on a three-year doctoral research project undertaken at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine that was funded by the Economic & Social Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council on Understanding Public and Other Stakeholders Perceptions of Environmental and Health Risks and Integrating them into the EIA and Planning Process.

Acknowledgements
Grateful and sincere thanks to all the local residents and professionals who made time to talk to me and provide the insights that helped produce this report. Thanks also to the Economic & Social Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council for providing the funding to make this research possible.

This report has been printed on recycled paper.

For further information or an electronic copy of this report, please contact us at: Email: Website: info@livingknowledgeconsulting.com www.livingknowledgeconsulting.com

Executive Summary
Community concerns and protests at the siting of technological facilities in their neighbourhoods have increasingly been recognised as important social phenomena. However, environmental impact assessments (EIAs) undertaken during the planning process have tended to show that the environmental and health risks of these facilities are low. This disjunction in expert and lay discourse has been pejoratively described as NIMBYism (Not In My Backyardism). More importantly, it has led to a risk perception gap developing between key stakeholders, especially residents and risk professionals1, that in turn is having four wider societal consequences: a trust-credibility gap, a knowledge-communication gap, a values-ethics gap and a democraticaccountability gap.

This report describes the key findings from a research project following a planning and siting process for a waste transfer station in London and a practical conceptual framework for understanding residents and other stakeholders concerns for the siting and planning process of technological facilities in urban and rural neighbourhoods. Individuals and communities are not NIMBYs but are intuitive, emotional, imaginative and reasoned in their responses to such siting processes. In effect, they are generally undertaking a wider, largely qualitative, form of risk and hazard assessment that takes into account their own personal and professional experiences as well as long term social, economic and political factors.

The practical framework described in this report argues that there are three key strands to understanding stakeholders worldviews in these settings: direct, process and symbolic. While planning expert-professionals and EIAs deal reasonably well with the direct environmental, health and economic concerns of potential developments, they deal poorly with the process and symbolic concerns that communities have.

The direct concerns involve issues relating directly to the facility and its operation in the neighbourhood. The process concerns involve issues about the openness and participatory nature of the siting and planning process such as having enough information and time to make an informed judgement as well as having a controlling influence on the decisions made during the process. The symbolic concerns involve three core issues: power, values and identity. Power involves questions of who has power to affect residents, is their accumulation and exercise of power seen as legitimate and are they seen to be using their power appropriately. Values involves moral and ethical questions about fairness, equity, transparency, respecting people and the importance of experiential knowledge. Finally, identity takes account of how the personal and community identities of residents interact with the professional identities of
1

Professionals who deal with risk issues as a normal part of their work including planning officers, environmental health consultants, public health professionals.
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experts, specifically how the siting impacts on perceptions of and ideals about home and neighbourhood.

This report points to the need for risk expert-professionals, the planning process and EIAs to incorporate the process and symbolic concerns that residents and other stakeholders have. By explicitly incorporating the concerns of residents and other stakeholders into EIAs as well as information on the important social, political and cultural factors at the local level conflict and mistrust between stakeholders could be reduced. It could also turn EIAs into strategic policy and planning resources that allow policy and decision-makers to better understand local issues and enable them to make better informed policies and decisions, locally and nationally.

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Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Context & Importance 1.2 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Waste Disposal Facility (WDF) Siting

1
1 5

2 . RESEARCH FIELDWORK CONTEXT

2.1 Background to the Development and Planning Process 2.2 Ethnography, Informal Observations and Key Reflections

8
8 12

3. DISCUSSION OF KEY FINDINGS AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

21

3.1 General Themes: 21 3.2 Developing a Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Siting of Waste Disposal and Other Technological Facilities 23 3.3 Exploring the process of risk perception during the siting and planning process for a 26 WTS 3.4 Using the Conceptual Framework to understand the siting and planning process for the WTS 29
3.4.1 Direct Concerns 3.4.2 Process concerns 3.4.3 Symbolic concerns 3.4.4 Role of the Media 3.4.5 Other Key Factors in influencing Risk Perception 30 33 34 37 38

3.5 Lay Publics and Expert-Professionals Core Definition of Risk 3.6 A Process Definition of Risk Perception

38 39

4. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

4.1 Key Conclusions 4.2 Recommendations
4.2.1 Strategic domestic waste management 4.2.2 Siting and planning process 4.2.3 Public consultation programmes 4.2.4 EIAs and environmental statements 4.2.5 Expert-professionals & expert institutions

40

41 44
44 46 47 48 49

4.3 Conclusion Summary

50

BIBLIOGRAPHY

51

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Table of Figures
Fig 1.1: The perception gap between stakeholders leads to important consequences for society in terms of trust, communication, values and accountability. Fig. 2.1: Map of the location of the current stadium, the proposed new stadium at Ashburton Grove and the proposed new WTS at Lough Road/ Eden Grove. Fig. 2.2: Timeline of the actual siting and planning process for the WTA in Islington with the key stakeholders and when they became involved Photo 2.1: The derelict site on which the proposed WTS was to be sited Photo 2.2: Caledonian Road, the major road running to the left of the proposed site for the WTS. Photo 2.3: The major council estate to the south of the proposed site for the WTS. In this photo the site lies at the far end on the other side of the wall. Photo 2.4: One of the typical side streets running off the Caledonian Road to the North & North West of the proposed site for the WTS. Photo 2.5: The existing WTS on the Ashburton Grove industrial area Photo 2.6: An artists impression of the proposed new WTS and new housing Photo 2.7: A local newspaper article showing local residents protesting against the proposed WTS. Photo 2.8: A protest flyer from one of the local residents associations. Photo 2.9: Protesters outside the Union Chapel Public Meeting in Jan 2001. Photo 2.10: Local residents marching along the streets towards the Union Chapel public meeting in Dec2001. Photo 2.11: Local residents showing their support for the proposed developments outside the Union Chapel public meeting in Dec2001. Photo 2.12: Local residents waiting inside the Union Chapel for the public meeting to start in Dec2001. Fig. 3.1: Key factors that influence perceptions of risk at the individual, societal and cultural levels Fig. 3.2: Risk Perception Framework for Siting & Planning Processes: the general issues and specific issues as they apply to waste disposal facility (WDF) siting Fig. 3.3: The iceberg of concern Fig. 3.4: Cartoon of Arsenal, the developer, on the front page of the ISCA, the umbrella objecting groups website Fig. 3.5: Diagram of Objecting Residents pre-existing concerns about the neighbourhood and their direct concerns about WTS 3

10

11 15 15

16

16 17 17 18 18 19

19

20

20 23

25 28

29

31

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&

Abbreviations and Acronyms

General EIA ES EU GLA GM HIA LULU NIMBY PM10 WDF WTS UK Environmental Impact Assessment Environmental Statement European Union Greater London Authority Genetically Modified Health Impact Assessment Locally Unwanted Land Uses Not In My Backyard Particulate Matter less than 10 microns in size Waste Disposal Facility Waste Transfer Station United Kingdom

Fieldwork DEFRA DETR ISCA NLWA Department of the Environment, Regions & Agriculture Department of the Environment, Transport & Regions (DEFRAs predecessor) Islington Stadium Communities Alliance (umbrella objecting group) North London Waste Authority

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1. Introduction
1.1 Research Context & Importance
Protests by local communities faced with the siting of technological and industrial facilities have been recognised for some time (for example, the extension of the Edmonton B incinerator, the Yucca mountain nuclear storage facility and the third runway at Heathrow airport). However this has tended to be regarded disparagingly as 'NIMBY' (Not In My Back Yard) and 'LULU' (Locally Unwanted Land Uses) effects by many risk assessment and policy experts (Freudenburg and Pastor 1992; Luloff, Albrecht et al. 1998). More recently, there has been growing public opposition to genetically modified crops that has been both vocal and direct. This has added to a growing realisation, among researchers and policy-makers, that public perceptions of risk have important implications for many parts of the environmental health research, policy and decision-making processes (Davies 1991; Calvet and Ewan 1995; British Medical Association 1998). Most recently two reports, one by the Royal Commission on the Environment and Pollution and the other by the Government's Interdepartmental Liaison Group on Risk Assessment have stressed that public values and perceptions of risk must be integrated into public policy and decision-making (ILGRA 1998; RCEP 1998).

The conceptualisation of risk and risk perception is complex. In this report risk is used to mean both a danger and the likelihood, i.e. probability or possibility, of that danger occurring. Risk perception is seen as a process, analogous to sensory perception, by which individuals gain information from their environment, relate it to their previous experiences and thoughts, and develop a judgement about an object, activity, group or person as being a danger. This report, therefore, argues that there is no dichotomy between an objective risk reality versus subjective risk perception as we all, lay and expert, regardless of our methods or instrumentation have a partial view of the natural, social and cultural worlds around us. We experience these worlds through the mediation of language, personal relationships, social institutions and cultural traditions.

The notion of public, lay people and stakeholders is also problematic and complex. Sally MacGill argues that the public are not homogeneous rather there are a range of publics and defining what we mean by the public can be problematic and political. She argues that researchers have to choose how to define the term public in terms of their own motives for trying to understand public perceptions of risks. Hence, in her words, the public consists of a multitude of overlapping and diverse subpopulations within and between which there are very different attitudes (MacGill 1989 pg. 53). In this report, public and publics are used to mean lay individuals and groups that make up a community and society who have not received formalised training in risk assessment and risk perception. One point to note however is that risk experts are also members of lay publics when siting processes affect their own homes and families. Conversely, in many areas there are few people who can be considered totally non-expert or lay as we all tend to have some expert knowledge and experience through
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exposure to expert discourses (Green 1997).

Community is also a complex construction and in this report is used to mean a group of people living in the same geographical area who, to a greater or lesser extent, tend to know each other and share common concerns and aspirations about the area and/ or the siting of a technological facility.

Finally, this report tends to make a broad distinction between risk experts and non-experts or lay publics. However while this dichotomy is a useful shorthand to help explore the key differences and roles that stakeholders have in policy and decision-making processes it is worth noting that this distinction is simplistic as we all have expert knowledges and experiences and as stated above are also members of the wider lay publics that make up society. So, depending on context, individuals and groups can act in both expert and lay ways. One way of partially overcoming this generalisation is to talk of expert-professionals and expert-residents or -lay people to emphasise that differences in risk understandings and perceptions are as much connected to the professional and non-professional roles that individuals and groups act out in policy and decision-making processes as to the technical expertise that they possess. A further point to note is that risk experts and professionals are not a homogeneous group rather their views, while broadly similar, tend to span a range of perspectives (Barke and Jenkins-Smith 1993).

So, while there is an increasing realisation that the public are more concerned, more vocal and more active, this has not stopped a growing risk perception gap developing between major stakeholder groups in society namely the public, researchers, local and national government, the media, NGOs and business. This is especially true, with regard to environmental and health risks (Hayes 1992; Gregory and Slovic 1996; Dunant and Porter 1997). This gap does not imply that risk expertprofessionals are right and that the public wrong or vice versa. Rather it is that each of these stakeholders brings their own ideas, values and experiences to their understanding of risks, their own perceptual map or worldview', that incorporates little understanding of why other stakeholders have different views. This has led the more powerful stakeholders to often underrate and de-legitimise less powerful stakeholders perspectives (Schwarz and Thompson 1990; Adams 1995).

Whilst differences of views, disagreements and disputes are an important and healthy part of modern diverse societies, increasingly these siting disagreements and disputes are turning into conflicts which are bitter and entrenched. Furthermore, they are leading to direct action and civil disruption that have an impact on society as a whole (e.g. the debate on the risks and benefits of gene modification technologies). These impacts range from the social and cultural to the political and economic (Beck 1992; Kasperson, Renn et al. 1998).

Many of these disputes and conflicts have centred around the environmental and health risks posed by these developments and technologies, for example the risks of congenital malformations, cancers and asthma. While the epidemiological literature on waste disposal facilities is still difficult to interpret

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in this regard, there have been recent studies which have shown that, at the very least, there are important psychosocial and stress impacts that siting disputes have on communities (Eyles, Martin Taylor et al. 1993; Vrijheid 2000).

It has also been argued that in their efforts to successfully access and influence policy and decisionmaking processes individuals and communities are becoming sophisticated users of scientific knowledge. They are focussing on the potential negative health and environmental effects of technologies, however small, as the best means of stopping these technological facilities being built (Cohen 2000). This focus on directly-acting risk concerns attributable to the development itself has tended to obscure four deeper issues that are only now being seen more clearly. The growing 'risk perception gap' between the various societal stakeholders appears to be having at least four important consequences for society (see Fig 1.1): a trust gap, a communication gap, an ethics gap and an accountability gap. This report uses the term risk perception gap as opposed to risk differences to imply that this gap needs to be bridged and reduced. In other words, experts and lay groups need to develop joint frameworks for identifying, understanding and managing risks. However, this is not a one-way process as the gaps in trust, communication, values and accountability feed back into and further widen the differences in stakeholders perceptions of risks.

Trust-Credibility Gap Risk Perception Gap

between stakeholders

Communication-Knowledge Gap Values-Ethics Gap Democratic-Accountability Gap

Fig 1.1: The perception gap between stakeholders leads to important consequences for society in terms of trust, communication, values and accountability.

1. Trust-Credibility Gap: There is a general loss of public trust and credibility in business, researchers, policy-makers, decision-makers and associated organisations and institutions. This loss of trust is increasingly affecting medical, public health, social welfare and political agencies and institutions. This picture is not uniform but lay people are less willing to defer to the judgements of expert-professionals. Hence, there is increasing mistrust of various types of risk experts, including health professionals, and the programmes and projects that they attempt to implement in communities (Wynne and Mayer 1993; Peters, Covello et al. 1997; Bennett and Calman 1999).

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2. Communication-Knowledge Gap: There is a lack of a forum for open, honest and clear debate on environmental and health issues. This can lead to misunderstandings, distortion and conflict between powerful stakeholders (e.g. government, media) with a generally 'silent' public caught in the middle. On one side are those with better communication skills like journalists or greater public trust like environmental groups and on the other 'big' business and politicians. Health and environmental risks have become part of the political 'weapons' used by communities and non-governmental organisations to influence and change community and societal-level policies and decisions. This has also led to scientific research and understanding being manipulated by stakeholders in order to achieve their own strategic ends, for example, by taking only those parts that confirm pre-existing views, or setting high standards of 'proof' before action is taken (Wallack 1994; Fischhoff 1995; Cohen 2000).

3. Values-Ethics Gap: There is a reduced interest in and understanding of the complexities of environmental health science and policy-making by lay publics, with a consequent de-valuing of science and science-based policy as a positive force for change that has contributed much to the well-being of society (Berger, Kristol et al. 1991). Green environmental groups have raised lay publics awareness of environmental issues and science but have tended to emphasise its destructive and negative impacts at the expense of its constructive aspects. Concurrently many researchers, funders and users of research, have tended to under-value and trivialise public perceptions (Shrader-Frechette 1998). One example of this is the way medical, scientific and other institutions have tended to create their own specialised forms of professional ethics that have not kept pace with changes in public views and not always adequately explored the wider moral and ethical implications of research and decision-making. This values gap is leading to greater calls from lay groups for risk expert-professionals and institutions to be more transparent, accountable and ethical (Carlo, Lee et al. 1992; Bauman 1993; Walker 1995; Burke 1999).

4. Democratic-Accountability Gap: There is resistance on the part of more powerful stakeholders - experts, politicians, and business - to involve the general public in health and environmental policies, programmes and projects which as a consequence has produced poorer outcomes, increased the chances of failure and heightened the potential for public opposition. Where public participation and consultation have occurred this has been seen either as a legal nicety or tokenism without a real belief in the need for and value of participation. This is in contrast to a growing desire by the general public to have a greater influence on how society is run and how public policy is developed. This desire is unlikely to go away and social and commercial institutions involved in environmental and health issues need to accept this growing trend (Brownlea 1987; O'Neill 1992; Barrow 1997; Gillis 1999).

The policy importance of this research is three-fold: firstly on purely democratic and social justice grounds it is important for researchers, policy- and decision-makers to take into consideration the

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concerns raised by the wider public. Yet there appears to be no straight forward way for this to be accomplished. Secondly, by understanding how and why residents and other stakeholders hold the risk views that they do there is an opportunity to develop approaches to bridge not only the risk perception gap but importantly its consequences: the gaps in trust, communication, values and democratic accountability. This is likely to lead to a reduction in conflict and an increase in cooperation between lay publics, community groups, environmental NGO's, researchers, businesses, risk experts and local and national governments. There would also be a reduction in the stresses and concerns within communities and savings in time, cost and effort in implementing projects. Finally, it could also potentially lead to more effective environmental and health policies and programmes that work in partnership with local communities and have a larger positive impact (WHO Healthy Cities Project 1997; British Medical Association 1998; Slovic 1999).

The research importance of this work is also three-fold: firstly, there is a need to attempt to integrate the various perspectives on risk and risk perception and thus develop a conceptual-analytical framework for understanding risk perception in the context of siting and planning processes. Secondly, there has been no risk perception research that has followed a siting and planning process, incorporating an EIA(environmental impact assessment), for any kind of waste disposal facility in a populated urban area. Thirdly, there has been no qualitative research on the risk perceptions of stakeholders specifically during the siting of a waste transfer station.

1.2 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Waste Disposal Facility (WDF) Siting
While there has been significant risk perception research over the last 30 years it has largely been with the aim of improving risk communication (Fischhoff 1995). There has been research on the sociological and cultural aspects of risk and risk perception but this has tended to look at macro-social and cultural processes (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Beck 1992). Only recently have these perspectives been used to understand local policy and decision-making. Risk policy and decisionmaking have begun to incorporate public perceptions and values but only now is this happening in risk analysis. Of the range of risk analysis methods, impact assessment - environmental, health and social - has increasingly become an important tool for enabling policy- and decision-makers to make better informed decisions about business developments, public infrastructure projects and the health and social needs of local communities (Glasson, Therival et al. 1994; Barrow 1997; British Medical Association 1998)

Of these EIA is the longest established, having been used around the world for the last 25 to 30 years, and is part of the regulatory systems of Europe, North America and Australasia (Wathern 1995; Harrop and Nixon 1999). It has also become part of the framework for implementing development aid projects

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in other parts of the world by agencies like the World Bank. There is now gathering momentum to see public concerns and community participation being integrated into the EIA process framework. In the UK 2,500 EIAs have taken place over the last ten years and this rate is set to grow. National policies set the context within which local planning authorities approve projects. The public and EIAs, via the environmental statement, are formally involved at the planning permission stage. However, in the UK, there is no formal legislated mechanism by which communities are proactively integrated into either the project-level EIA process or the more strategic environmental assessment (SEA) levels.

In particular, the planning process for waste disposal facilities (e.g. landfill, incinerators, recycling and waste transfer stations) has important qualities that could help to elucidate key aspects of lay publics perceptions of risks. Waste disposal facility EIAs account for 20% of all EIA activity in the UK and current studies and reviews have highlighted key weaknesses in the process.

The deficiencies of EIAs generally are said to include (Radcliffe and Edward-Jones 1995; Wathern 1995; WHO Healthy Cities Project 1997) Weaknesses in the identification and evaluation of health and social impacts. Little recognition of the contribution that understanding community perceptions of risk and of involving local communities could have on the EIA process. Poor involvement of the public and other interest groups before the submission of the environmental statement. An increasingly combative planning process with developers, planners, communities and NGOs tending to be in opposition to each other. Poor treatment of alternatives to the proposed development and poor development of risk minimisation measures. Lack of a strategic dimension within the EIA process as many EIAs do not take into account the combined or cumulative effect of other similar development projects at local or regional levels. A failure to address the broader issues for example the impact of a development on global climate change, the sustainability of a development and the inequity in the distribution of risk burdens within affected communities.

The role of the public in UK EIAs, in contrast to that of the developer and environmental control authority, is not explicitly stated. The UK is affected by EU legislation, specifically Article 6 of Directive 85/337/EC relating to the need for public involvement. However there is considerable variation in how each Member State interprets and applies the Directive and so, in the UK, the exact form the public consultation process takes tends to be left up to each individual developer (Harrop and Nixon 1999).

The 1968 Town and Country Planning Act made public participation a statutory requirement. Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) e.g. County, Borough and District Councils must therefore take account of issues raised by the developer, statutory consultees and the general public. While the Department of Environment has laid down requirements that certain statutory agencies should be consulted before

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the environmental statement (ES) is submitted, developers are not obliged to consult any organisation. Furthermore statutory agencies can be asked for information but cannot make a formal assessment of the project at the EIA stage.

There is no formal consultation of the general public during the EIA before the environmental statement is submitted to the LPA. The ES is placed on the planning register and a copy is sent to the Secretary of State. Only after the ES is submitted are statutory agencies and the public consulted. The developer has to publicise the details of the planning application, inform the public where they can consult a copy of the ES and a minimum of 21 days is given for written submissions from the public. After this the LPA considers all the submissions and makes a decision within 16 weeks, following which the details of the decision, including reasons, must be published.

However, two key issues are having an important impact on the future of EIAs and public participation. Firstly, Local Agenda 21 argues for the need to empower local people to develop community-led solutions to sustainable development and secondly, the EC Directive 90/313 on the Freedom of Access to Information on the Environment (Harrop and Nixon 1999). The former is likely to make consultation a key part of planning procedures and the latter should increase the transparency of EIA and planning processes to public and other stakeholder scrutiny.

Furthermore, the disposal of societal waste has moved up the political and social agenda at the local, national and international levels as the amount of waste has increased and the range of solutions diminished now that sustainable waste management has become a key policy concern. Finally, in public terms, every person as a creator of waste has a personal stake in the issue of waste disposal and its environmental, health, social, economic and political dimensions (Therival and Rosario Partidario 1996).

Studying the EIA and planning process within the context of waste disposal facility siting is therefore a meaningful and important way of understanding public perceptions of environmental and health risks in a dynamic policy and decision-making process that takes place in a local community setting.

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2 . Research Fieldwork Context

The fieldwork for this study was undertaken between December 2000 and May 2002.

2.1 Background to the Development and Planning Process

Arsenal Football Club, the developer, began life when a group of workers at the Woolwich Arsenal Armament Factory, in South-east London, decided to form a football team in late 1886. In 1891 the Club turned professional and changed its name to Woolwich Arsenal. They joined the Football League in 1893. The Club has been in Islington at its current stadium site in Highbury since 1913. It is the biggest and most high profile organisation in the borough being a lead club in the English Football Premier League.

The 1990 Taylor Report, reduced the capacity of the current stadium by making all-seater football stadiums mandatory throughout England and Wales. The resultant reduction in ticket income and the increasing competition from other Premier League clubs meant that Arsenal needed to do something to increase seating capacity. Arsenal were keen to stay in Islington, and retain their historical roots, so in 1998 they explored the option of increasing the capacity of their existing stadium. However this proposal aroused strong community protest, and after initial Council and community consultations this idea was abandoned without proceeding to a formal planning application.

The Club then went on to explore other potential sites and found twenty-seven sites in and around London including a greenfield site on the outskirts of the city. These they narrowed down to four after screening against a range of criteria including size, accessibility, planning considerations and availability. The Club finally chose Ashburton Grove as their best option and submitted a formal planning application in November 2000. Ashburton Grove is currently a business and light industrial estate, with an existing municipal WTS, and Arsenals aim was to relocate the existing businesses either to the Lough Road/Eden Grove site, which is currently derelict, or to appropriate sites elsewhere. So, the Club wanted not only to buy the land at Ashburton Grove but also the derelict land near Lough Road. Within the proposed developments they also had to propose the relocation of the existing municipal waste transfer station (WTS) to Lough Road (see Fig 2.1 which shows a map of the area). This WTS was owned by the North London Waste Authority, a consortium formed by seven inner London boroughs, including Islington that has councillors on its management board. Arsenal also proposed to build Islington Council a new vehicle depot and offices at Lough Road. Finally, a third proposal was also submitted to redevelop the existing Highbury stadium into new housing. The full Arsenal proposals were therefore large and complex involving three parcels of land and a series of interlinked moves, by businesses and other organisations, in order for the whole development to be successfully realised.
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Arsenal first contacted Islington Council about Ashburton Grove in the summer of 1999. The Planning Committee agreed draft planning briefs for Ashburton Grove and Highbury Stadium in January and February 2000. There was no planning brief at this stage for the Lough Road site. The Council undertook community consultations for the planning briefs, in April and August 2000, by forming a design review group made up of residents association and community group representatives. In November 2000, the Club formally submitted its proposals for planning permission. Fig. 2.2 gives a diagrammatic representation of the timeline for the process.

Islington Council then undertook a formal public consultation process to gather the opinions of local people between December 2000 and January 2001. This included an information leaflet and stamp addressed forms for comments, letters to community groups and statutory agencies, adverts in local newspapers, public meetings, a mobile exhibition trailer, a drop-in centre at the planning office and their website. The Club also undertook its own information and public relations exercise during this process using brochures, pamphlets, exhibitions at the current stadium and their website. The first set of exhibitions took place in December 2000 but the major public meetings took place in January 2001 with the deadline for comments being the end of January. However after requests at the public meetings and in the comments and letters sent to the Council, the Council agreed to extend the deadline and included all the comments they received regardless of whether they arrived before the deadline or not.

The original timetable was to have a decision on the proposals by March-April 2001. However, after this first stage of consultation, Arsenal were asked to revise their proposals in light of the issues raised by local statutory agencies and residents. This revised proposal was submitted in June 2001 and had a second smaller round of public consultation. Following this there were three lesser supplementary revisions in September, October and November 2001 which, except for the design review group, did not involve a formal public consultation process.

On 10 December 2001 at a special council meeting, where the public had another opportunity to voice their objections and support, Islington councillors voted and approved the Arsenal proposals by a large majority. In all, the planning process took over two and half years from the early site proposals to the granting of planning permission and just over a year from the formal submission to the granting of planning permission. The application was then sent to the Mayor of London and the Secretary of State for their approval.

During this time there were a number of key political events. There were national elections in May 2001 where the Labour Party won by a historic majority and gained an unprecedented second term of office. There were also some local borough council elections during that time. Hence, during this time many residents spoke out against the councillors and said that they would not be voting for them should the Arsenal proposals be approved

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Fig. 2.1: Map of the location of the current stadium, the proposed new stadium at Ashburton Grove and the proposed new WTS at Lough Road/ Eden Grove.

Existing Stadium

Existing WTS & Proposed Site for New Stadium

Proposed New WTS

(from http://www.streetmap.co.uk)

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Fig. 2.2: Timeline of the actual siting and planning process for the WTA in Islington with the key stakeholders and when they became involved
(Overlapping stakeholders indicate where the community in particular is made of multiple stakeholders with different perspectives. For clarity the dotted lines highlight only the significant relationships between key stakeholders. Stakeholders involved at the early stages continued to be involved in later stages)

May 2001

May 2002

1998 Strategic Planning & Technical Assessment of Potentially Suitable Sites

Nov 1999

Nov 2000

Dec 00-Jan 01

National Elections

Jul 01

Dec 2001

Local Elections

Planning Design Brief Developed

Planning Proposal & Environmental Impact Assessment

Environmental Statement

Planning Consultation 1

Revision of Proposal

Smaller Planning Consultation 2

Planning Consideration by Islington Council

Consent Given
Referred to & Consented by GLA & DEFRA Judicial Appeal Lodged by ISCA (Community Group)

Arsenal FC

EIA Consultants Review Group

Residents Association (RA)

ISCA
(umbrella community protest group)

Islington Borough Council

(Planning Dept.)

made up of RA Representatives around stadium (Not Lough Road)

Community Residents INCLUDES

Lough Road area Representatives JUN 2001

Local Businesses

Other Local Organisations Islington Council Lawyers

(e.g. churches, historical society)

Judiciary
(The Courts, Judges, Lawyers)

National Government
(1990 Taylor Report)

Local Media
(Newspapers, Radio, TV)

Railtrack & Sainsburys

(owners of the Lough Road land)

Police & Fire Brigade & London Transport

Other Statutory Consultees

e.g. GLA

Health Authority
(Public Health Dept.)

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2.2 Ethnography, Informal Observations and Key Reflections

I spent a significant amount of time in and around north Islington and this section provides a personal perspective on the neighbourhood and the planning process. The derelict site where the proposed WTS was to be sited is bounded by two major roads: Caledonian and Holloway Roads (see previous Fig.2.1). In the daytime the Caledonian Road is busy with cars, buses and vans (see Photos 2.1 and 2.2). On a typical weekday young students walk to the nearby University of North London and older people, some with wheelie bags, wait for buses that will take them into town to do their shopping. Other residents visit the local shops for newspapers, milk and cigarettes. On the other side, Holloway Road is even busier with the main university building and major retail stores such as Waitrose and Argos situated on it. The area has some run down areas and there are two major prisons - Holloway and Pentonville - in the neighbourhood. This is in contrast to south Islington where Upper Street is a fashionable and vibrant road that acts as a cosmopolitan hub with restaurants, cafes, antique shops, fashion boutiques, a cinema and a design centre as well as the Town Hall and other Council offices.

The neighbourhood to the south of the derelict site is made up of a number of large council estates and blocks built in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The estate nearest to the site, the Ringcross Estate, was built in the 70s and is well maintained with inner courtyards that have personal gardens on the ground floor, communal green space and communal pathways criss-crossing through it (see Photo 2.3). Outside school hours children play in and around the estates - on their bikes, with a football or just milling around. Other blocks of flats are less well-kept and some are quite run-down with dirty and smelly communal spaces that have graffiti scrawled on their stairwell walls. There are also some 1980s built well-maintained terraced housing, with well kept front gardens, along the busy Mackenzie Road. In both the well-maintained and badly-maintained blocks some individual families and residents have created their own little green oases along their communal landings and balconies with potted plants and other decorations.

Around a third of council-flat residents, in most of the blocks, have iron gates to enclose and protect their parts of the communal balconies with some residents having iron gates directly outside their front doors. These parts of the neighbourhood give the distinct impression that residents are worried about crime and safety. Though walking around in the evenings the area both to north and south of the site did not feel unsafe. Most of the streets are fairly clean and tidy though on some back alleys and side roads there is rubbish and the occasional burnt-out car. There is also a sense of community in some parts of the neighbourhood with people stopping to talk to each other, children laughing and playing, active local churches advertising youth projects and a nearby local primary school. There is also a well-maintained local park - Paradise Park - with a well-regarded urban farm situated within it.

To the west there are a mixture of owner-occupied housing as well as a run-down estate. The park in that area - Caledonian Park - is known for its burnt out cars, vandalism and the unruly behaviour of the

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children playing there (see previous Fig 2.1). There are also some businesses, light industrial facilities, an Age Concern community centre, some council terraced housing and some university buildings in that part of the neighbourhood. To the east of the site and Holloway Road there are a mixture of residential housing and a large industrial park, Ashburton Grove, in which three waste transfer facilities are sited. Of the three WTSs two are small private ones while the third is the large municipal one which is to be sited on the derelict site (see Photo. 2.5). These WTSs are 15-20 minutes walk away from the Lough Road neighbourhood and are set well within the industrial park. There are regular dustcarts, and other large trucks, manoeuvring through the narrow roads within the area. The area around the facilities smells of rubbish for a distance of 30 metres or so.

To the north of the site the area is made up of privately owned terraced houses and flats with some new housing association and council flat developments from the 1980s (see Photo 2.4). This part of the neighbourhood is more prosperous and well-maintained with some active residents associations creating micro-communities that have regular community events including summer barbecues, jumble sales and neighbourhood gardening projects. However, the newer housing developments, while tidy and well-kept, feel much more deserted and have less of a sense of community. This part of the neighbourhood also has a couple of active, community-focused local churches that also acted as focuses for community opposition to the WTS siting.

Informally talking to local residents and shopkeepers many were aware of the proposed developments and many had strong concerns. The concerns were similar to those raised in the chapters that follow with one elderly woman feeling that the Council and Arsenal were jack-booting the residents. One counter-position raised by a local Asian shopkeeper was the notion that the developments would probably increase the house prices in the area and that this was a good time to buy before prices shot up. She saw the WTS and new housing as a stimulus to the local area and an opportunity for anyone who had a house or could afford a house in the area to make money. This notion was founded on a perception that the Council would do what they wanted and as they wanted the Arsenal developments it was bound to happen and so residents should just make the best of it.

The Council had a local Neighbourhood Forum (due to changes in the Councils departmental structures these have now been turned into area committees) for residents to raise their concerns and feedback on council services, housing, crime and health issues to the appropriate agencies and officers. At most meetings there are twelve to sixteen regular attendees, aged between 40-65 years, who are largely from the west and south of the neighbourhood. The two local ward councillors are also present along with a council officer who writes up the minutes of the meetings. The meetings are held at a number of venues including the local Age Concern community centre and local churches.

I also spent a considerable amount of time in the public area of the planning offices where I wrote up the written public comments. Most of that time was uneventful, with few residents coming in to look over the proposals or the EIA report, but one partially overheard informal conversation between the

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design professionals of the Arsenal development is worth describing. As these professionals waited for a planning officer they discussed the designs and plans for the stadium. One of the design professionals began talking about how he could not understand the residents concerns and how some of their concerns seemed to him to be over-hyped. His colleagues seemed to agree and expressed similar feelings however as the conversation progressed the original design professional began to reflect on his personal experiences and described how thinking about it he could understand the residents concerns. He recounted how his next door neighbour had recently undertaken a home extension and that he had been very angry and upset about the proposal but it had got planning permission and he had found that he was now quite comfortable about it.

The active residents associations to the north set up their own protest website called Cally Nightmare, they asked residents to put flyers in their windows, organised a number of local protests which stopped traffic on the Caledonian Road and petitioned passers by, in cars and on foot, to object to the siting of the WTS (see Photo 2.7). They also helped organise, alongside the broader umbrella objecting group ISCA (Islington Stadiums Communities Alliance), a residents march to the final public meeting (see Photos 2.8 to 2.12).

Attending the first set of public meetings in January 2001 was insightful because my early expectations were that few residents would attend and little concern would be expressed because there was already an existing WTS in the area. Added to this the facility was not like an incinerator or landfill as waste was simply compacted and then sent elsewhere. The emotion shown by residents at the meetings shattered this preconception. There was a palpable sense of fear, worry and distrust of the WTS, the Council and Arsenal. The meetings showed the diversity and range of opinions in the neighbourhood with conditional and unconditional support for the siting as well as strong objections.

In many respects, residents were talking to each other as much as to the Council and Arsenal. The meetings acted as a dialogue between objecting residents themselves as well as between objecting and supporting residents. One incident that epitomises this involved an elderly woman who got up to protest that the rubbish lorries would have a dramatic impact on her and her daughter who already had health problems. She was so angry and upset she told the council Would you live there? Would you want to live here?. The woman ended her appeal by looking at the councillor and council officers sitting on the podium and saying You are the weakest link. Goodbye a reference to a TV quiz show. The public meetings also showed how expert-professionals found it difficult to engage with and understand local residents. In some cases, there was incomprehension and bewilderment on the faces of expert-professionals when they talked with residents. In particular, they found it difficult to deal with the range and intensity of emotions expressed by residents.

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Photo 2.1: The derelict site on which the proposed WTS was to be sited

Photo 2.2: Caledonian Road, the major road running to the left of the proposed site for the WTS.

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Photo 2.3: The major council estate to the south of the proposed site for the WTS. In this photo the site lies at the far end on the other side of the wall.

Photo 2.4: One of the typical side streets running off the Caledonian Road to the North & North West of the proposed site for the WTS.

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Photo 2.5: The existing WTS on the Ashburton Grove industrial area

Photo 2.6: An artists impression of the proposed new WTS and new housing

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Photo 2.7: A local newspaper article showing local residents protesting against the proposed WTS.

Photo 2.8: A protest flyer from one of the local residents associations.

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Photo 2.9: Protesters outside the Union Chapel Public Meeting in Jan 2001.

Photo 2.10: Local residents marching along the streets towards the Union Chapel public meeting in Dec2001.

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Photo 2.11: Local residents showing their support for the proposed developments outside the Union Chapel public meeting in Dec2001.

Photo 2.12: Local residents waiting inside the Union Chapel for the public meeting to start in Dec2001.

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3. Discussion of Key Findings and Conceptual Framework

3.1 General Themes:
As Adams has argued we are all danger and risk analysers (Adams 1995). Human beings could not have survived and evolved if they did not have the ability to assess, evaluate and manage the wide range of threats that surrounded them. We seem to have an innate qualitative danger-risk assessment ability that develops and matures as we become adults. This corresponds to the biological and evolutionary aspects of the risk assessment processes found in the mind and relates to the findings of cognitive research, to Margolis work on intuitive cognition and to recent research which has reevaluated the role and value of emotions as a useful and indeed a vital way humans have of understanding the world around them (Margolis 1996; Evans 2001). This ability is probably adapted to earlier times when dangers were on the whole visible, physical and immediate (Beck 1992).

However, these biological cognitive processes are overlaid and significantly modified by the influence of social and cultural factors. These social and cultural aspects of lay risk assessment have become more important as the dangers and risks faced in modern industrial societies have changed from the seen to unseen, immediate to delayed, local to global, and gradual to catastrophic. This is where the risk society perspective of Beck and Giddens, the conditional knowledges perspective of Wynne and Rayners fairness hypothesis feeds into our understanding of the socio-cultural, institutional and historical processes that are shaping and influencing lay publics understandings of risks and risk perception (Giddens 1990; Beck 1992; Wynne 1992; Rayner and Cantor 1998). But as Mary Douglas and Beck, in different ways, have argued risk also works at a symbolic and cultural level as a signifier and omen (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Beck 1992). A kind of Jungian cultural archetype that works at the individual, group and societal level as a way of separating us from them, good from bad, pure from impure, order from chaos and even life from death (Douglas 1966; Fritzsche 1995). Certain dangers have greater and deeper resonance than others and so the perception of these dangers is greater which in turn leads to greater change and disruption in the lives of individuals and communities.

Danger, hazard and risk therefore have an impact at the levels of emotion, intuition, the sub-conscious and conscious. They conjure up a whole set of images, ideas and feelings within an individuals cognitive framework and worldview (Slovic, Layman et al. 1991). This effect occurs at both the individual and group levels leading to threats to place, values and identity. Personal characteristics such as personality traits, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, personal experiences and education also have an important influence on how we perceive risk. This is brought out in the work of modern geography and psychology (Kahneman, Slovic et al. 1982; Cutter 1993). The specific
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characteristics of a hazard or risk are also important and this is brought out by Sandmans outrage model and the psychometric risk research of Slovic and Fischoff (Fischhoff, Slovic et al. 1978; Slovic 1992; Sandman 1996).

I would argue that risk researchers are blurring and mixing up two different issues whether lay publics understandings of risk as a concept are different from expert-professionals or whether it is lay publics understandings of risk assessment that are different. There are differences in how risk is conceptualised scientifically versus how it is understood in everyday contexts but there is a core conceptualisation and understanding of what risk means, that crosses lay and expert discourse, otherwise we would not be able to communicate using the word risk at all. There can be arguments about whether something is a danger or not but more often the conflict is around how much of a threat a person, event, object or process poses and how we should deal with it. Edelstein and Baxter argue reasonably convincingly and the themes emerging from this studys interview participants seems to confirm, that the public use risk as a synonym for danger, hazard and the possibility of that danger occurring (Edelstein 1988; Baxter 2000). This study also found, like Baxter, that uncertainty tends to be seen as a likelihood that we cannot be protected from a danger and hence that this danger will definitely occur sometime in the future (Ibid). Instead of seeing the difference between lay publics and expert-professionals as solely, or even most importantly, about their understandings of risk it is much more evident that lay people seem to be undertaking a wider, largely qualitative, form of risk assessment. People in their professional lives can undertake technical and quantitative risk assessments whose aim is to derive the probabilities of potential adverse consequences. However, in our everyday lives and in areas where we dont have specialist knowledge, both lay people and expert-professionals undertake a form of lay risk assessment which is more concerned with the qualitative issues of trust, credibility, fairness, impositions from above, the catastrophic nature of potential consequences, the effects on children and other vulnerable groups and so on.

In the literature, risk is conceptualised in three broad ways: a) as an objective measure of the probability of a given hazard occurring, b) as an objective measure with a greater or lesser subjective component involving the characteristics of a risk (e.g. catastrophic potential, effect on children and other generations, mortality versus morbidity) and c) as a socio-cultural construct involving social and cultural relationships and structures. There also seem to be differing understandings of uncertainty with lay publics thinking that uncertainty implies that a risk cannot be managed and that it is likely to occur sometime in the future versus risk expert understandings as a danger that cannot be statistically predicted. The work on differing perceptions of stakeholders by Sjoberg and Barke et al as well as the direct work on EIAs and planning processes argues that different stakeholders, including different types of scientists, have differing perceptions of risks and hazards (Barke and Jenkins-Smith 1993; Sjberg, Frewer et al. 2000). Therefore, in any given context, there are likely to be differing understandings of risk and uncertainty which are strongly influenced by the social role that stakeholders play and the institutional affiliations that they have.

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Finally, the way EIA, siting, consultation and planning processes are run has a key influence on lay publics perceptions of risks. Trust, differing levels of power, the quality of social relationships, the differences in ethos and values and personal and group identities are key to explaining differing perceptions of risks.

3.2 Developing a Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Siting of Waste Disposal and Other Technological Facilities
Fig 3.1 shows the key factors that influence perceptions of risks at the individual, societal and cultural levels. It is worth noting that individual level factors feed into the social and cultural and social and cultural factors feed into the individual. The framework shown in Fig. 3.1 is too broad to be useful in understanding lay publics and other stakeholders perceptions in the context of a local decisionmaking process like an EIA (environmental impact assessment), siting and planning process. Analysing the key themes that emerge from the research literature leads to the analytical conceptual framework shown in Fig. 3.2. There are three strands to understanding stakeholders risk worldviews during siting and planning processes: direct, process and symbolic concerns.

Fig. 3.1: Key factors that influence perceptions of risk at the individual, societal and cultural levels INDIVIDUAL LEVEL Personality Gender Ethnicity Experience Knowledge Cognitive Heuristics Attitudes & Biases Personal Worldview Environmental Philosophy SOCIETAL LEVEL Gender Ethnicity Community, Space & Place Trust Media Political Structures Other Societal Structures Socio-Economic Status Social Identity Experts & Knowledge Group Worldview Group Cohesion Space & Place Stigma CULTURAL LEVEL Order-Chaos Purity-Pollution Morals-Ethics

Direct concerns involve issues relating directly to the facility and its operation in the neighbourhood such as the environmental, health, economic and social impacts. Process concerns involve issues about the openness and participatory nature of the siting, consultation and planning process including the methods of consultation used, the level of information provided and the length of time of the

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consultation. Symbolic concerns involve issues to do with power, values and identity including trust, stakeholders values, lay and professional identities and disruptions to existing ways of life.

What this framework shows is that all three strands are important to understanding lay publics and expert-professionals perceptions of risks in siting and planning situations.

Furthermore, these strands are interconnected and intertwined and separating them out is simply to show the strands more clearly. This is one of the difficulties for expert-professionals in understanding lay publics perceptions. Lay publics move from one set of concerns to another in an order that is meaningful to them. Hence, they can talk about air pollution one minute, distrust and fear of the developer the next and the lack of information during the public consultation in the third.

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Fig. 3.2: Risk Perception Framework for Siting & Planning Processes: the general issues and specific issues as they apply to waste disposal facility (WDF) siting First Strand Direct Concerns Environmental Health Economic Social Community Noise Traffic Pollution Pests Smell Leakage Second Strand Process Concerns Information Consultation Participation Access Third Strand Symbolic Concerns Power Values Identity

General Issues

Specific Issues of WDF Siting

Access to information on long term consequences & how site chosen Range and adequacy of consultation Level of involvement

Power of govt. & experts Ethics & morals of siting and its consequences Personal & Community Identity

less Direct Concerns Process Concerns Symbolic Concerns

EMOTIONS FELT

more

Direct, process and symbolic concerns are intertwined with each other over space and time with past relationships, experiences and outcomes influencing how people, events and activities are perceived.

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Before going on to analyse the fieldwork in terms of this conceptual-analytical framework I will develop five overarching themes that provide the context within which lay publics and other stakeholders perceptions of risks occurred during the WTS siting and planning process I investigated.

3.3 Exploring the process of risk perception during the siting and planning process for a WTS
In this section, I describe five metaphors or themes that provide an overarching description of how the process of risk perception occurred during the WTS siting and planning process and the context within which it occurred.

The first metaphor is the notion of a moment of clarity or epiphany. The second a process of loss and bereavement. The third is the WTS stone thrown into the community pond. The fourth metaphor is the iceberg of concern. The fifth is that of Gulliver and the Lilliputians or David and Goliath.

The world is fragmentary, disjointed, contradictory and complex. We all have only a partial view of this world and take in an even smaller part of that. We attempt to make sense of this world and what is happening to us and construct a personal narrative that orders, sequences and structures this reality. As objecting residents became aware of the potential siting of a WTS in or near their neighbourhood many had a defining moment, a moment of clarity or epiphany. Giddens ideas of ontological security and Edelsteins cultural immunity is set aside as bigger, wider and deeper life issues come to the fore (Edelstein 1988; Giddens 1990). The WTS aroused a wide range of strong emotions in residents such as anger, fear and horror as well as vivid negative images of the blight and degradation to their neighbourhood and to peoples ways of life. Residents forgot the daily hassles and routines of their lives as they focused on the implications of this new threat to their neighbourhood. Giddens and Edelstein both see ontological security and cultural immunity as ways to avoid and ignore the risks and threats that surround us and so prevent the intense reflection, angst and mental paralysis that thinking about these things might engender.

However, as Giddens himself to an extent argues, another way of looking at this is that it is simply a way to allow us to get on with our everyday activities of going to work, looking after the children and meeting the daily necessities of life. These issues are therefore not repressed but pushed to one side as we get on with the more urgent and solvable issues in our lives. It is only when we see, hear or directly experience a potential threat that these deeper philosophical questions of how we should live, what our communities and neighbourhoods should be like, what morals we should live our lives by and what values our societies should have is brought to the fore. The siting of the WTS therefore not only raised concerns about the WTS but also, in some residents, provoked a scrutiny of their lives, their local community, their neighbourhood environment, local institutions and the wider society and culture.

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For some residents, this scrutiny was profound as all kinds of issues: personal, local, social and cultural are opened up for reflection, review and re-evaluation. Residents are therefore actively constructing and re-constructing how they relate to their wider social and natural environments (Irwin 2001a). This in turn meant that residents perceptions of risks were not just solely based on the potential risks of the WTS and its operation but also on the existing risks and problems in the neighbourhoods, the role and values of other stakeholders in imposing or not protecting them from these risks, thoughts about how society should manage waste and other societal and cultural factors. From Beck and Douglass perspectives the WTS becomes a local signifier and omen (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Beck 1992). A focal point for questions and conflicts about power, values and identity.

The second metaphor is that of a stone thrown into a pond which causes multiple ripples on the waters surface. These ripples disturb the surface calm of the pond but die away over time. Extending this metaphor, the WTS siting caused ripples, even waves, of concern and protest on the seemingly calm surface of this local community. These obvious signs of concern and protest lessened over time but the WTS stone had not gone away - it had sunk slowly to the bottom of the pond, invading and changing a significant part of the ecology of the community pond. This alien WTS stone brought with it its own ecology including ways of working that had and would continue to disrupt and destroy existing ways of life and the nature of the neighbourhood environment. For those residents who were concerned about the WTS the early visible concerns and protests did not simply die away - they were submerged as they became familiar and people became reconciled to the profound changes the WTS stone could cause to their community pond. This coming to terms had important implications for residents sense of their own identity and their perceptions of their local neighbourhood including a loss of security, changes to their sense of home and stigmatisation. Residents were therefore not only concerned with the direct impacts of the stone but with questions of who threw it and why. The WTS is therefore seen as a threat to and invasion of their familiar, relatively stable and ordered neighbourhood and community.

The third metaphor is a process of loss and bereavement. The process is not as linear or so compartmentalised that residents simply move through a range of emotions and feelings. The initial reaction of many residents was one of shock, disbelief and denial. As the reality of the potential siting of the WTS began to be conceptualised by residents they became angry, outraged and upset. They were angry at having this potentially dangerous facility sited in their neighbourhood and at having their ability to choose and control their lives and community taken away from them by powerful others. They hoped, protested and bargained in an effort to change the course of the siting and planning process and to make the powerful actors understand their worries and concerns. As their protests and negotiating were perceived to be unsuccessful in influencing the course of events they began feeling a sense of loss, sadness and even depression. Finally, as residents became used to the idea of the WTS being built near them they began to accept, tolerate and resign themselves to its presence. This emotional process links to Kubler-Ross stages of dying and Edelsteins vortex of the contamination

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experience and the insider-outsider duality where the feelings, experiences and understandings of those residents faced with the siting of the WTS are so different from residents living further away and expert-professionals that it leads to mutual incomprehension, misunderstanding and distrust (Scrambler 1991; Edelstein 2000).

The fourth metaphor is the notion of an iceberg of concern (see Fig 3.3), which shows how residents displayed varying levels of concern and support for the siting of the WTS.

Fig. 3.3: The iceberg of concern

Visible & Active Objectors

Visible & Active Supporters

Less Visible Passive Objectors

Less Visible Passive Supporters

Unaware or Unconcerned

Many objecting residents had a moment of clarity or epiphany but not all and many residents were supportive, unaware or unconcerned about the siting of the WTS. The community around the proposed site therefore had a mixture of actively and passively opposing, actively and passively supporting as well as unaware and unconcerned residents. The active opposers and supporters actively recruited these seemingly passive, silent and submerged residents to their side and used their silence as a tacit form of assent for their points of view. These categories of objection, support, unawareness and unconcern are not fixed but are fluid and dynamic with residents moving from being unaware and unconcerned to actively opposing or supporting the siting and vice versa. This has parallels with Margolis risk matrix model where some residents see both the positives and negatives (conditional support), some see only the negatives (objectors), some see only the positives (supporters) and some are indifferent (unaware or unconcerned) (Margolis 1996).

The fifth and final metaphor is that of Gulliver and the Lilliputians or David and Goliath. Expertprofessionals see residents as equally powerful and well able to influence other stakeholders during the siting and planning process. In contrast, residents viewed themselves as numerous Davids amidst the powerful Goliaths of the planning authority, the developer and risk expert-professionals. Throughout the process they saw themselves as powerless and helpless in the face of the economic,
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political and scientific power and control of these stakeholders. They perceived themselves as Lilliputians attempting to restrain, bind and overcome large and powerful Gullivers who had come to wreck their neighbourhood. This was illustrated powerfully by the cartoon on the front page of ISCAs ( the umbrella objecting group) website which showed a large and powerful Arsenal - smoking a cigar, wearing sunglasses and showering money - walking blithely over residents and their homes. This perception also led them to see other stakeholders in stereotypical and caricatured ways as for (heroes/champions of the just cause) or against them (villains).

Fig. 3.4: Cartoon of Arsenal, the developer, on the front page of the ISCA, the umbrella objecting groups website (www.redcard.org.uk)

3.4 Using the Conceptual Framework to understand the siting and planning process for the WTS
In this section I discuss the findings from the fieldwork in more detail and place them within the conceptual-analytical framework developed in Section 3.3. The aim is to show how this framework can provide a theoretical, practical and useful way of understanding the diverse and varied concerns between the three key stakeholder groups: objecting residents, supporting residents and expertprofessionals. A framework furthermore that could help develop strategies and approaches to reduce the destructive conflict and distrust that occurs during the EIA, siting and planning process for WDFs.

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3.4.1 Direct Concerns

The direct concerns strand was where most of the focus and conflict during the process occurred. It is this strand which showed the most obvious and clear differences in perceptions between objector residents, supporter residents and expert-professionals.

The public comments and interviews showed that residents, objectors in particular, were undertaking a form of lay risk assessment that involved emotion, intuition, imagination and reason. Objecting residents started from a baseline, or as Margolis terms it bundling, of the existing problems and challenges in their neighbourhood (Margolis 1996). This was evidenced by the way residents explained their reasons for objecting and supporting by alluding to the current state of the neighbourhood and how the WTS siting would exacerbate existing problems. The potentially new risks and hazards posed by the WTS exacerbated, amplified and, in Baxters words, intensified, the existing worries that residents had about their neighbourhood (Baxter 1997). Residents were predominantly concerned about the environmental and health risks of the WTS. More importantly residents assessment of the risks made an implicit distinction between risks posed by the WTS itself and those posed by the operation of the WTS. Most of the risks perceived by objecting residents were not from the waste transfer station itself but from the operational consequences and side-effects of the siting of the waste transfer station in their neighbourhood such as traffic, air pollution, smell and noise (see Fig. 3.5). Lastly, residents seemed to perceive primary, direct acting effects which were negative in themselves but also, causally linked secondary, broader-acting cumulative negatives for example the directly acting air and noise pollution leading to cumulative health and quality of life impacts. Within this lay risk assessment residents, both objecting and supporting, were undertaking a form of risk versus benefit analysis at the levels of the direct personal and the wider community. This was exemplified by objecting residents feeling that there was little or no community benefit, and supporting residents feelings that there were regeneration, economic and general community benefits. Objecting residents views were based on their likes and dislikes for other types of developments, their concerns about other waste disposal facilities, their views on societys management of waste and their preferred view or vision of what should be built on that site.

Supporting residents also undertook a lay risk assessment however, whereas objectors saw many large risks and few benefits, they saw many benefits and few risks. They perceived general regenerational, environmental, community and economic benefits with little or no risks. They did agree with objectors on two points they saw the neighbourhood as in need of regeneration and improvement and saw the existing WTS as old and dilapidated. Some supporters did give conditional support to the WTS provided safety concerns about the WTS were addressed and others were willing on condition that a through road was built that would reduce existing and future traffic problems.

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Fig. 3.5: Diagram of Objecting Residents pre-existing concerns about the neighbourhood and their direct concerns about WTS Pre-existing Concerns/Perceptions of the neighbourhood Traffic No green space Air pollution Neighbourhood needs improving Suffering community Deprived area Dense-Overcrowded Noise Crime Health High Council Tax General Concerns about WDFs Societal Waste Management Likes & Dislikes about Other Types of Developments WASTE TRANSFER STATION Future operation Visual-aesthetics (unsightliness) Vermin Traffic (congestion, size & numbers) Direct Concerns Air pollution Noise Degrade-blight area Environmental effects Smell Disruption-disturbance Litter/ dirt Residential area Health (esp. children) No community benefit Quality of life Property values Wider strategic issues No green space

Preferred Use of the Site

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The public comments did not illuminate the views and perceptions of the organisational stakeholders to any great extent. What the organisational comments did show was the range and diversity of views among the organisations involved in the process. Residents groups were against the proposals citing similar concerns to objecting residents. AISA, the Arsenal fans club supported the proposals and cited similar benefits as the supporting residents. The organisations and the councillor giving conditional support expressed views similar to those residents giving conditional support.

Only objecting residents were interviewed and their views and concerns showed strong similarities with those expressed by the objector residents who sent in written comments. The exercise in picking and explaining what developments residents liked or disliked living near to was insightful. It showed that residents had a range of environmental, health and social concerns about a whole range of developments. In fact, many residents saw the potential risks and problems with, what at first sight might seem, innocuous developments such as a public park. So waste facilities are not a development set apart from other developments but are part of a continuum of developments which can heighten perceptions of being at risk to a greater or lesser extent. This continuum of developments has at one end very personal developments like a neighbours patio or kitchen extension, in the middle it has developments like a local psychiatric hostel or large housing estate and at the high risk perception end developments like municipal and hazardous waste facilities. Knowledge, familiarity and direct experience tended to reduce residents perceptions of risks. Other factors influencing risk perception will be discussed in Section 3.4.5.

Expert-professionals who undertook this exercise and rated what developments the general public would like and dislike showed that, to a large extent, they understood the concerns of lay people. More importantly when asked what kinds of facilities they would like or dislike being sited near them most expressed similar concerns as residents. As with residents knowledge, familiarity and direct experience of certain developments reduced experts perceptions of risk. Both residents and expertprofessionals saw that many, if not all, types of developments had potential problems and risks associated with them.

From the in-depth interviews, the public meetings and the planning documents expert-professionals showed that they recognised the potential risks and hazards identified by objecting residents. However their, and the EIAs, focus was on the direct-acting risks of air pollution, noise, smell and traffic. They focused on quantifiable and measurable hazards but they did not link these, as residents did, to existing problems in the neighbourhood or to the wider, less easily quantifiable and more qualitative, impacts on quality of life and the wider environment. One reason for this was experts less detailed knowledge and experience of the neighbourhood. It was here that objecting residents direct lived knowledge and experience of their communities came into conflict with the perceptions and scientific assumptions of the expert-professionals.

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If there was a significant overlap and mutual understanding between lay publics and expertprofessionals on the potential risks and dangers of the WTS and other developments then how do we explain the differing perceptions of risks and the conflict and misunderstandings that occurred between them during this siting and planning process. There were three key reasons why despite similar views on many aspects there were still wide differences between residents and expertprofessionals: the perception of other stakeholders and their power to influence the process, the ethical-moral-value frameworks of the stakeholders and the differing identities, and impacts on those identities, during the process. These issues will be discussed in greater detail in section 3.4.3 on symbolic concerns.

3.4.2 Process concerns

From the written comments, in-depth interviews and public meetings the key process concerns of objecting residents were firstly, that the consultation was not fully involving of the community and was not early or long enough. Second, that there was not enough detailed information given on the consequences and implications of the operation of the waste transfer station. Third, they were not shown the alternatives, the history of the site and previous proposals. Fourth, they did not feel they had the power to significantly influence the planning process and were not sure about the legal framework of the siting and planning process and how it worked. Fifth, that the EIA was riddled with misleading assumptions and biased in favour of the developer. The EIA as a technical risk assessment tool asked the question all other things being equal what additional risks were created by the proposed WTS. In contrast residents asked Why should we be exposed to any new risks? and Who is asking us to be exposed and why?. This aspect strongly links into the fairness hypothesis, and research on the siting hazardous facilities that emphasise the crucial role of trust, liability and consent in siting processes (Kasperson, Golding et al. 1992; Rayner and Cantor 1998; Kunreuther, Fitzgerald et al. 1993; Gismondi 1997).

These concerns heightened objecting residents concerns because they generated increasing uncertainty as to what was happening and intensified their sense of helplessness and lack of choice and control in affecting the siting of the WTS. Here again, the perceptions of the other stakeholders and their values played a key role in heightening residents perceptions of risks. This was most clearly seen by the positive views that supporters had of the developer, planning authority and the planning and consultation process. Objectors distrusted the motives of the developer and the planning authority and felt that they were colluding with each other to further their own interests. They felt that the decision to allow the developments to go ahead had already been made behind the scenes. They also perceived the planning process to be unfair and burdening an already deprived area with a facility that would further blight and degrade it. They felt that while the potential benefits of having the WTS sited in their neighbourhood would be distributed to residents inside and outside the borough the costs would be borne, almost exclusively, by residents living around the proposed site. The next section will

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explore these issues in more detail but what emerges from the fieldwork on process concerns highlights the importance of the differing notions of justice and fairness that stakeholders have.

Finally, residents gave more weight to the direct experiential knowledge of other people in the neighbourhood than to the scientific and mathematical understandings developed in the EIA and environmental statement. This was in contrast to the expert-professionals who, in general, gave more weight to the conclusions and results of the models used in the EIA. EIA consultants did not explain or justify their assumptions and methods but expected and assumed that residents would accept their conclusions without question. Residents used their knowledges and experiences to successfully refute key assumptions made by the EIA consultants on traffic flows and other potential negative effects. They showed convincingly that traffic to and from the WTS, and crowd flows to the potential new stadium, were significantly underestimated and so the conclusions based upon them were inaccurate. The expert-professionals - EIA consultants, developer and planning authority officials - tended to display a technocratic and modernistic approach to the siting in that they placed implicit and explicit faith in scientific models and saw risks as identifiable, preventable and manageable. They did not seem, or were not able, to understand the wider concerns of objecting residents. This aspect feeds directly into the Beck, Wynne and Giddens ideas of reflexivity, lay local knowledges and institutional and expert social framings (Giddens 1990; Beck 1992; Wynne 1992).

3.4.3 Symbolic concerns

3.4.3.1 Power Residents, objecting and supporting, articulated four key aspects of power during the siting, consultation and planning process that influenced their perceptions of being at risk: who had power, how did they accumulate that power, were they legitimate holders of power and how were they using or abusing that power. This power theme linked to the values that stakeholders had as they primed other stakeholders to see them and their use of power in certain ways. The differential levels of power also affected how stakeholders saw themselves, their identities and their sense of choice and control. This ties in with Douglas and others work on the cultural/ symbolic aspects of risk and the importance of power and identity (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Dake 1992).

From the written public comments, in-depth interviews and public meetings objecting residents saw the developer, a private business, as having considerable financial and political power. They saw this power as being accumulated illegitimately through self-interest and greed. They felt the developer was abusing this power to impose its own needs and desires onto the wider community without giving anything in return. They saw the planning authority as having a lot of political power and influence. The authority was seen as a legitimate holder of democratic power who should be in the service of the community that gave it that power. They were also seen to be abusing their power by arbitrarily bending rules, being influenced by monetary gain and overawed by the prestige of the developer. Objectors, in contrast, saw themselves, other residents and community groups as being powerless to
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effect change and forced to accept this dangerous facility. Community groups were seen in a very positive light as working for and creating a sense of community. This positive regard was not unconditional as residents scrutinised the values and actions of community groups in the same way that they scrutinised other more powerful stakeholders. Supporting residents, in contrast, saw the developer and planning authority as legitimate holders of power, working for the whole community and wanting what was best for everyone.

From the in-depth interviews and the public meetings, expert-professionals saw themselves as having considerable power, accumulated legitimately and perceived themselves using this power sensitively and for the common good. They also saw residents as having considerable power of their own. They viewed residents as equal and equally important stakeholders in the process whose views were fully taken into account. They were ambivalent about the role and legitimacy of residents associations and other community groups in the process. This was because one of their major concerns was the representativeness of the views of active residents and community groups in relation to the borough residents as a whole. Residents and key expert-professionals therefore had fundamentally different perceptions about the power relationships between each other and these differing views on power had a profound influence on the misunderstandings, distrust and differing perceptions of risks displayed during the process.

3.4.3.2 Values Values, ethics and morals provide an important explanation of why there were differing perceptions between the stakeholders. The public comments, interviews and public meetings showed objecting residents express a number of key values which they felt should drive the siting, consultation and planning process. Their key values were protecting the community and residents from harm, respect and dignity for others, a fair and equitable distribution of risks and benefits as well as openness, honesty and transparency.

Expert-professionals while they agreed with these key principles and to a greater or lesser extent implemented them during the process also had other key values. The developer believed in selfinterest that could also benefit the wider community. The planning and waste authorities believed in a utilitarian ideal of ensuring that the developments would benefit the greatest number of people. Both also shared a strong concern to follow the legal and due process rules and regulations.

In terms of the values and notions of justice residents expressed distributional and procedural notions of justice, the planning authority showed utilitarian notions of justice and the developer displayed a libertarian or enlightened self-interest notion of justice (Davy 1996; Hunold and Young 1998). One of the key reasons for the conflicts and differing perceptions of risks that arose during the siting, consultation and planning process was due to these differing core values and notions of justice.

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3.4.3.3 Identity Residents saw themselves and their neighbourhoods in certain ways. As described by Edelstein they built up an image or landscape of what they thought their community and neighbourhood were about (Edelstein 2000). They imagined how they would like to live, what they would like in their lives, the kind of community they wanted to be a part of and the kind of neighbourhood they wanted to live in. In other words they had idealised notions of who they and their families were (their sense of self) and what their community and neighbourhood (their sense of place) should be. They had an imagined sense of identity and community. This has connections to Douglas work on individual and group identity and how these influence what things are seen as risks (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982). Residents wanted to live in a caring and sharing community where people were friendly and helped each other out. They wanted to live in a neighbourhood that was peaceful, green, had public open space and had a mixture of residential, leisure and business developments. What they did not want was an unfriendly, dirty, noisy and crime-ridden community with little green open space and large, dense developments. The WTS siting worked at two levels, it invaded residents personal and family identities and their community and neighbourhood identities. Personally, the WTS with its connotations of rubbish and industrial machinery, affected residents perceptions of themselves and their families. The rubbish being placed near them meant they were rubbish and hence that they must be worth very little for others to site this rubbish near them. Some residents, therefore, felt stigmatised by potentially living near a waste disposal facility. The industrial nature of the facility also created fears about the hidden and unknown nature of the activities taking place within it and their potential health effects on residents and their families. From a neighbourhood level perspective the WTS represented a shattering of their imagined ideal of what they wanted their neighbourhood to be and what kinds of developments they envisioned within it. It added to the existing problems of the neighbourhood by changing an open, albeit derelict site, with overgrown greenery into a tall, high density industrial development. A development furthermore that would generate air, noise and smell pollution as well as potential long term health and environmental effects including asthma, poorer quality of life and a degradation of the neighbourhood environment. At the level of the community, it represented a negation of their desires for a caring and sharing community by having operational effects that would have large lorries speeding down their streets destroying existing social activities, relationships and daily routines (e.g. children playing, people talking in the streets and elderly people walking around).

In contrast, supporting residents identified themselves and Islington very strongly with Arsenal and its history in the borough. They felt that Arsenal had brought prestige, greatness and joy into their lives. They also felt that Arsenal was doing a great deal of good work in the community as well as bringing economic prosperity to Islington. Some supporters identified so strongly with Arsenal that life in Islington without Arsenal was unthinkable for them.

Finally, expert-professionals saw themselves as objective, neutral, dispassionate and rational stakeholders with clear legal and professional roles that were linked to their institutional affiliations. Their mask of professionalism distanced them from the worries and concerns of residents and made them seem remote, uncaring and indifferent. It also distanced them from their own lay values and
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experiences which in turn allowed some of them to disregard residents lay-expertises, knowledges and experiences and overlook their own naive social assumptions in doing the EIA. Professionals found it easier to deal with the direct concerns because they fitted easily into their professional ethos by being objective, identifiable and measurable. Expert-professionals also tended to universalise and generalise in contrast to residents who localised and particularised. Residents placed strong weight on personal stories and experiences in contrast to experts who valued generalised and universal models and accounts. While reason and emotion were intertwined in residents perceptions and understandings of the process they were specifically excluded in the expert-professionals ethos and role. Finally, the professional mask was beneficial for expert-professionals because it increased their sense of control and reduced their feelings of uncertainty during the process.

3.4.4 Role of the Media

It was difficult to gauge the role and significance of the media in influencing stakeholders perceptions of risks during this siting and planning process. Stakeholders had mixed views on the role of local newspapers with some feeling that they had been informative while others feeling that they were simply a mouthpiece for the developer or a place for people to express their misinformed opinions. What did come out was that the newspapers acted as forums for information, debate and discussion between opponents and proponents of the WTS and the wider developments. The newspapers seemed to be generally supportive of the developments but did recognise the worries and concerns of objectors both about the proposed WTS and the wider proposals.

In terms of the three perspectives on the media explored this study provides evidence for Ploughmans hierarchy of credibility in that those with greater credibility, for example the developer, planning authority and organised groups, did have greater access to the media than individual residents (Ploughman 1997). However, residents did use the letters pages of both papers to maintain a longstanding debate, discussion and attack with those holding opposing views. This study also provides evidence for Dunwoodys perspective on power structures and the way the media behave (Dunwoody 1994). In terms of Dunwoodys perspective the local newspapers acted both as a forum for consensus and an arena for debate between the various stakeholders, they showed both positive and negative images of the neighbourhood and they showed positive and negative images of the powerful stakeholders. This mixing of the two categories described by Dunwoody may have been because Islington is a distinct urban borough within a larger urban metropolis. Local newspapers therefore are not as consensual and supportive as newspapers in more rural and localised communities but are also not as conflict-based and divisive as London-wide and national newspapers. Finally, as argued by the Glasgow Media Group, residents were savvy consumers of media news stories and many understood the biases that crept into the stories about the WTS (Philo 1999). For residents the local newspapers were secondary sources of information below family, friends and

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neighbours. In contrast, the media was the primary way by which expert-professionals gained information about local views and issues.

3.4.5 Other Key Factors in influencing Risk Perception

A number of specific factors emerged during this study which parallel those discussed in the literature review (Bord and O'Connor 1992; Cutter 1993; Flynn, Slovic et al. 1994). Proximity or nearness to the potential site increased residents perceptions of risks and their likelihood to actively protest against the WTS. Women seemed to be more concerned about the WTS than men and less supportive of the other developments as well. Knowledge of waste disposal facilities and direct experience of these facilities tended to reduce residents perceptions of risks. Some of these aware and experienced individuals still opposed the development but their reasons were less to do with the facility itself and more about the wider implications and consequences. Having an existing health condition or children tended to make residents more concerned and more aware of the potential risks of the WTS and its impacts on them and the neighbourhood. Finally, in terms of communication, family and friends had an important influence in heightening (and reducing) residents perceptions of risks while having a long term consultation process with a wide range of stakeholders tended to lessen perceptions of risks.

3.5 Lay Publics and Expert-Professionals Core Definition of Risk

This study suggests that lay publics and expert-professionals understandings of risk as a concept hinge on three core facets: the notions of hazard/ danger, chance/gamble and uncertain/future.

Risk is a hazard and danger. Risk is the probability and possibility of a hazard occurring. Risk is a gamble with positive and negative consequences. Risk is the uncertain occurrence and unknown nature of a future hazard.

This relates to the themes developed in Chapter 2 on lay publics and expert-professionals understandings of risk. Both lay publics and expert-professionals saw the positive rewards of taking risks as well as the potential negatives. This ties into Baumans view on the notions of risk in modernity being linked to gambling but is in contrast to Douglass assertion that risk is now linked to negative consequences only (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Bauman 1993). Lay publics and expertprofessionals also saw risk as referring to unknown and uncertain events in the future which feeds into Becks and Giddens perspectives that risk is societys way of managing danger and the unknown future (Giddens 1990; Beck 1992).

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3.6 A Process Definition of Risk Perception

Using the evidence gained from the literature and the fieldwork we can now develop a general process definition or conceptualisation of risk perception.

Risk perception is the reflexive process by which individuals and groups identify, understand and give meaning to (conceptualise) an object, activity, person or group as a threat or danger. This involves a process of lay risk assessment, occurring at the levels of emotion (evoking fear, anxiety and dread), intuition (intuitive cognition and heuristics), imagination (ability to picture future possibilities) and reason (high-level cognition and judgement). Hence risk perception involves sensory perception and sub-conscious and conscious mental sub-processes including instinct and habit. These sub-processes occur in the context of a person or groups overall view of the world i.e. their current beliefs about their natural, social and cultural environment, their relationship to others and their place in the world. Furthermore these sub-processes use information and knowledge from direct life experiences (personal and professional) and indirect experiences via a range of media sources and social networks (e.g. family, friends, social group, community, and workplace). Risk perception therefore involves learning and memory at individual and group levels and can lead to changes in attitudes and beliefs about an object, activity, person, or group. This in turn can lead to various forms of action (including inaction) to deal with the perceived risk or danger. This process is dynamic and changes over time as people mature, have families, develop illnesses and add to their store of knowledge and experience.

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4. Conclusions and Recommendations

Three and a half years ago I had the opportunity to accompany my first supervisor, Helen Dolk, to the town of Wakefield, in North Yorkshire, where a current landfill site was being extended. She had been invited by the local Council to talk about her EUROCAT work, on the possible association between increases in birth defects and living near landfills. She talked to a range of stakeholders including a local residents group RATS (Residents Against Toxic Scheme), waste company managers and an officer from the Environment Agency (Dolk, Vrijheid et al. 1998). I did not know then that six months later I would be doing my doctorate on residents concerns around the siting of an urban WTS or that the government would be commissioning its own research along similar lines to EUROCAT. Three years on, time has passed, but as evidenced by an article in the Guardian2 the concerns of many Wakefield residents living near the landfill have persisted to the present day (Prasad 2002). They are still concerned about the environmental and health effects. They worry that information about the site, its operation and the kinds of rubbish that goes into it is still not readily accessible to them. They are still concerned about the operators of the site and their commitment to safety and community participation. They feel that the local Council lied to them about what kind of facility this was going to be and that the Environment Agency (EA) has not done enough to monitor and regulate the site. In contrast, the operators, the Council and the EA see themselves as listening to residents concerns and doing a good job in ensuring that the facility is safe and run to the highest standards.

I therefore came to this study with an understanding of the value and limitations of epidemiology and quantitative environmental health risk assessment in helping to deal with residents concerns in a local policy and decision-making process. I also came with a sympathy for and a recognition of the value of lay perceptions of risks. My aim was therefore to use a qualitative methodological approach to better understand residents and other stakeholder groups perceptions of risks in a community setting as they manifested themselves during a process that incorporated an environmental and health risk assessment. I chose to investigate an EIA, siting and planning process for a municipal WTS in an urban neighbourhood.

In this report, I have attempted to describe what each of the stakeholder groups perceived as the risks during the siting and planning process and developed an understanding of why they held these 'risk worldviews'. I have also followed these stakeholders over time to see whether their perceptions of risks changed and identified those factors that led to changes in risk perception. From the literature review and fieldwork, I have developed a conceptual framework that allows the differing perceptions of risks between stakeholders to be understood in context. A framework furthermore that points the way towards some possible approaches to reducing mistrust and conflict during such siting and planning processes.

A national daily newspaper

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In this final chapter, I will highlight the important conclusions emerging from my study and make some key recommendations on how mistrust and conflict can be reduced. I will then go on to explore my reflections on the study methodology, its limitations, this studys contributions to knowledge and the potential directions for future research.

4.1 Key Conclusions

No one, lay publics or expert-professionals, wants to have a waste disposal facility (WDF) sited near the place where they or their families live. There is a continuum from lesser to greater concern about the full range of non-hazardous and hazardous developments from the neighbours patio and kitchen extension to a nearby supermarket or waste facility. Direct and indirect knowledge and experiences tend to reduce perceptions of risks and make living near a WDF more tolerable.

Key direct concerns of residents include: environmental concerns such as the damaging and blighting of the neighbourhood; health concerns of vulnerable individuals such as children, older people and those with ill health; the disruption and disturbance of everyday routines and ways of living and finally the level and range of the potential community benefits compared to the potential risks. The above are seen as strong, legitimate and genuine concerns by local residents while falls in property values, though still important, are seen as more personal, more selfish and less legitimate concerns.

Expert-professionals have professional and organisational objectives that influence what they see as the risks. Their goals are to carry out their professional duties and meet their organisational objectives while attempting to deal with the concerns of local residents. Their key risks are not achieving their organisational objectives and the impact of residents concerns and protests in hindering the achievement of those objectives.

In terms of the planning and consultation process residents are concerned about not having enough time, information and transparency during the process. Importantly, there is also a feeling of powerlessness and unfairness when a WDF is sited in a neighbourhood which already has many problems. Expert-professionals on the other hand see the public consultations as an important means of communicating things to residents and perceive ignorance, misperception and distortion (via the media and other local residents) as key barriers to communication that lead to the heightening of residents perceptions of risks. Expert-professionals were also concerned about the

representativeness of the views and perceptions of the actively objecting and supporting residents in relation to the larger silent majority of borough residents.

The risk worldviews of lay publics, and experts in lay contexts, incorporates a form of qualitative risk or threat assessment that involves emotion, intuition, imagination and reason. This risk worldview and

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assessment process changes over time as people mature, have families, develop illnesses and add to their store of knowledge and experience. There is a core conceptualisation of risk by both the public and experts which is connected, like all concepts, to a web of other associated concepts, words, images and emotions. Individuals, both lay and expert, at this core level have a very similar understanding and notion of what risk is. Risk has three common facets: 1) danger/ hazard/ accident, 2) gamble/ chance/ possibility and 3) uncertainty/ future/ unknown.

Power, values and identity are three crucial aspects of residents and other stakeholders risk worldviews. The greater the sense of an illegitimate accumulation of power on the part of any given stakeholder in the process the more distrusted the motives of this stakeholder will be in the eyes of other stakeholders. The greater the feeling of an abuse of power through imposition and coercion, on the part of any given stakeholder, the greater the outrage and distrust other stakeholders will feel. The greater the sense that stakeholders have selfish interests, values and motives the more anger, distrust and heightened perceptions of risks there will be. Finally, the further away a technological or other development is from an individual or communitys ideal notions of what their community and neighbourhood ought to be, the more threatened, upset and at risk they will feel. These symbolic aspects apply to private sector, public sector and voluntary sector organisations. However, in general, private business, especially big business, is seen to have less legitimate power and more selfish monetary values and motives than public and civil organisations (e.g. the local authority and community groups). Community groups are the most positively viewed and trusted organisations but even they are not immune to being seen, by residents and other stakeholders, as illegitimate holders of power, non-representative and set-up to further the selfish interests of their members to the detriment of the wider community.

Individual residents, and the community groups they form, are trusted more by other residents not because they are inherently more trustworthy but because they have the same level of power in these processes, they will face the same consequences should the development occur and tend to share the same ideals about what the local community and neighbourhood should look like. Hence representativeness, a key concern among expert-professionals, is not necessary in a consultation process or for a set of individuals to represent the wider community. What is important are a shared sense of identity, shared values and the use or abuse of the power that these individuals have in any given situation. Resident representatives tend to be aware of the issue of whether they are true community representatives both of the residents who come to community meetings and of those who do not. They question their own legitimacy and try to ensure that they feedback to and have their mandate endorsed by local residents on a regular basis. These are the crucial differences between elected officials and local resident representatives in these kinds of situations. Elected officials tend not to live in the same area and therefore will not have to bear the same consequences. They also

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have more power and influence, their mandate is endorsed at longer intervals and they have to represent a wider group of interests at local, regional and national levels.

Experts because of their specialist knowledge, experience and professional ethos tend to display an objective, neutral, modernistic and technical perspective and approach which to residents appears as distant, remote, unemotional and cold. However they can and do understand what lay publics tend to feel but the professional mask that they wear creates a distance and distortion between their own lay feelings and their professional judgement, which in turn creates a distance and distortion in their dealings with lay publics. This mask is useful to professionals because it increases their sense of control and reduces their feelings of uncertainty in their dealings with lay publics.

A number of specific key influences on risk perception emerged during this study which closely parallel those discussed in the literature review. Proximity or nearness to the potential site increases residents perceptions of risks and the likelihood that they will actively protest against the WTS. Women, on the whole, are more concerned about the WTS than men. Knowledge of waste disposal facilities and direct experience of these facilities tends to reduce residents perceptions of risks. Having an existing health condition or children tends to make residents more concerned and more aware of the potential risks of the WTS and its impacts on them and their neighbourhoods. Finally, in terms of communication, family and friends have an important influence in heightening (and reducing) perceptions of risks while having a long term consultative involvement with key stakeholders tends to reduce perceptions of risks.

Expert professionals need to address the concerns of lay people by addressing their direct, process and symbolic concerns simultaneously. They need to be less concerned and ambivalent about the legitimacy and representativeness of community groups. They need to understand that community groups have strong community legitimacy and are key social channels of communication and cohesion. Addressing residents concerns involves long-term ongoing dialogue well after a planning and siting process has concluded. Stakeholders with power also need to demonstrate that their values encompass serving the wider community and respecting people as well as providing direct evidence of self-sacrifice, in terms of time, money and other resources, for the sake of other less powerful stakeholders. They also need to openly acknowledge the differential power that they hold, ensure that the use of that power is handled in a sensitive, careful and cautious manner and apologise and take remedial action when there is seen to be an abuse of power. This involves listening and acting on local issues and concerns in a positive and prompt way.

Finally, urban neighbourhoods have strong similarities with rural neighbourhoods. Urban residents have almost identical concerns about the siting of WDFs to those expressed by rural communities, a comparable sense of community or neighbourliness and analogous ideals about what their neighbourhoods and communities should be like.

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4.2 Recommendations
The overarching recommendations that I feel emerge from this report are the need for stakeholders to understand the differing priorities and perceptions of risks that other stakeholders have, particularly residents, and the need to develop approaches that integrate this understanding in explicit and implicit ways into the EIA, siting and planning process for WDFs and other types of developments. This study also highlights the need for the planning process as a whole and EIAs, in particular, to incorporate the process and symbolic concerns that communities and other stakeholders have as well as the social, cultural and historical context of the local area.

4.2.1 Strategic domestic waste management

Change generates uncertainty and uncertainty generates concern and anxiety. Changes that are imposed and unwanted rather than negotiated and wanted increase concerns and perceptions of being at risk. Any strategic waste management plan needs to manage this change by incorporating and making explicit certain key values: the fair distribution of risks and benefits, the enhancement of a sense of community, the creation of pleasing environments, openness, honesty, participation and empowerment.

Starting with first principles there are number of key questions facing policy-makers: 1) Is waste management necessary ? 2) Can we have no or zero risk ? 3) Can everyone choose which risks they want to be exposed to and which not ? 4) How can we choose collectively where to site WDFs and who should decide these issues ? 5) Do we want to manage, contain and suppress public fears, concerns and perceptions of being at risk or do we want to empower and enable residents to understand waste issues and make informed choices for themselves, their communities and for society as a whole ?

The first two questions are relatively unproblematic to answer, waste management is a necessary part of modern societies and it is not possible to provide a no or zero risk environment. The third question is more difficult, but at the moment, we cannot always choose which risks we want to be exposed to and which not and this is certainly the case for societal processes, programmes and projects. However, this question and answer raises issues of the justice and fairness of imposing risks on others and leads to the fourth and fifth questions (Stephens, Bullock et al. 2001). If we choose to manage, contain and suppress public fears and concerns then we need to realise that we can only do so temporarily and that over the long term this is likely to lead to covert and overt conflict between the different stakeholders in society. If we choose a collective process that empowers and enables residents to make informed decisions for themselves, their communities and for society as whole then we need to involve lay publics in developing waste management plans and the strategic environmental

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assessments of waste issues (Petts 1995). This would enable lay knowledges, experiences and insights as well as their professional knowledges and experiences to be integrated into these strategic plans and assessments. Their participation will enhance the credibility of these plans and assessments with lay publics who may potentially have to live near these WDFs. Furthermore, these lay people can act as advocates and champions in their own local communities increasing the knowledge and information local people have about these policy and decision-making processes.

Policy-makers, especially when direct involvement is not possible, because of time and resources constraints, need to better understand the key influences on lay publics perceptions of risks so that they can develop coherent policies that take account of residents direct, process and symbolic concerns at local, regional and national levels. In this study residents saw no coherent plan which showed why a new WTS was needed in Islington and in this neighbourhood, how this siting fitted into the wider waste management strategy for the seven borough consortium and how this WTS complemented the other WDFs located in the region. Residents were also concerned about the lack of a sustainable and coherent transport strategy for taking away the waste from the WTS and the inadequacy of the reasoning behind the proposed approach. In this case instead of using the disused rail depot and railway lines on the derelict site the waste was going to be taken away by lorry, increasing the traffic and consequent negative effects two-fold, all because the national rail authority felt there was no way that the line could be brought safely into use.

Ugly technologies like WDFs need to be sensitively, imaginatively and aesthetically designed so that they strengthen the sense of community, bring people together and enhance the urban landscape for example by having community facilities like an artificial ski slope or an environmental resource centre (Logsdon 1989). If this is not possible then providing a surrounding green Eden would hide and mask the ugliness and industrial aesthetic of these facilities by for example creating a roof garden and landscaped areas with scented flowers, shrubs and trees. Alongside these design aspects operationally these facilities need to integrate into and become part of their local neighbourhoods by bringing people into the facility and becoming community and neighbourhood resources through open days for local people, school visits, environmental seminars and other kinds of social and educational activities.

Finally, at both strategic and local levels WDF sitings should involve an environmental improvement programme that visibly raises the quality of the wider local environment, ideally as the WTS is being built, by improving the cleanliness of the area, removing graffiti and refurbishing existing local parks and amenities. This could be linked to an environmental or neighbourhood renewal or remedy fund created by the developer, operator and government - that would provide long term finance for remedying any damage caused by the construction and operation of the WDF as well as improving the local area more generally. This fund would be community and resident-led with local people directing what the environmental priorities were and how the money was spent.

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4.2.2 Siting and planning process

As stated in the previous section, change generates uncertainty which in turn generates concern and worry. Communities see the planning process as a social and community decision about which development is best for the neighbourhood as a whole. In contrast, expert-professionals see the EIA, siting and planning process as a discrete process that is isolated from other developments and from previous applications. They also see the decision-making as an individual and isolated event, albeit one that should fit within the boroughs overall development plan, that starts with the planning submission and ends with the granting of planning consent. In contrast residents want to be involved well before this point and see the granting of planning permission as a green light for developers to do what they want as there tends to be no formal explicit mechanism to monitor and enforce the promises made by the developer during the planning process.

The siting and planning process needs to be changed from the way it is currently perceived as a winner-takes-all and losers-gain-nothing process to a win-win one. A process that moves from conflict and distrust to cooperation and negotiation. This could be achieved by creating a siting and planning process that starts with residents being involved in developing the strategic waste management plan and does not end with the granting of planning consent but carries on with the monitoring and review of the operation and impact of the WDF through a residents oversight committee (Renn, Webler et al. 1991; Lynn and Busenberg 1995). Furthermore, expert-professionals need to be more aware of the existing knowledge on how siting and planning processes should be run, for example the Facility Siting Credo, as well as other voluntary siting approaches (Kunreuther and Susskind 1991; Rabe 1994). Though these approaches are not guaranteed to prevent concern, protest and conflict they have been used successfully in North America to reduce local community concerns. One radical approach would be for planning authorities to actively side with and give greater weight to residents rather than acting as neutral referees. This would over time help to reduce the distrust and misgivings that residents have about the planning authoritys motives and make decisions which go against local residents more bearable. Ultimately, expert-professionals need to share their power so that residents feel greater control and less uncertainty. This would inevitably mean that expert-professionals would feel, and have to deal with, greater uncertainty but they would in return be sharing the responsibility of any subsequent decisions reached and any future problems that might result. Expert-professionals also need to explicitly recognise and accept that a better consultation and planning process with less conflict and distrust may just lead to residents simply expressing a stronger and clearer objection.

Consultation processes need to start earlier and run longer. They should involve regular public meetings at regular times and places to update and inform residents of what is currently happening in behind the scenes negotiations and to disseminate new information and feedback on previously discussed issues. Consultations also need to explicitly incorporate the ethical-moral values of honesty, transparency, equity, democracy and accountability. Residents also need to be educated in the legal

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and process aspects of siting and planning processes so that they are aware of and have explained to them the legal framework which, at first sight, may seem illogical and unfair. Residents also need to be informed of the detailed history of the potential site, other previous applications for development and the reasons for their refusal as well as why this site in particular is the best one for a WDF.

The siting and planning process needs to be seen as a multi-way communication and dialogue forum where stakeholders (e.g. developer, planning authority, waste disposal authority, health authority and community groups) are all key actors and should be present to answer questions and explain their perspectives and priorities on the WDF and the siting. Importantly, expert-professional stakeholders must recognise the legitimacy and value of community groups in representing local views and concerns however unrepresentative they may seem in other ways. Finally, the consultation and information meetings should be continued well after planning permission has been granted so that residents concerns when the facility is built and operational are heard and acted upon. As mentioned earlier this could include the creation of legally framed community forums or citizen committees that would monitor the operation of the facility and help ensure, alongside the planning authority and Environment Agency, that residents concerns are acted upon.

4.2.3 Public consultation programmes

It is important to use a wide range of approaches to meet residents information needs including having designated places, with long opening hours, where information and planning documents are kept with experts present to discuss concerns and issues, informational leaflets sent to residents, websites, local newspapers and mobile exhibitions. All these channels need to be highly publicised, widely visible and easily accessible.

Public meetings are key forums for discussion, debate and information exchange. Where feasible, they should be held as near to the affected community and potential site as possible. This would increase the number of affected residents likely to attend as well as give a practical demonstration of the respect key stakeholders, especially the planning authority, have for local residents. In terms of the structure of public meetings, it is important for all key expert-professional stakeholder groups to be present so that the relevant experts are there to answer residents questions in detail. If the planning authority wants to show its neutrality and impartiality then it needs to act in that way by getting the developer to present their proposals, allowing other stakeholders such as the waste authority, police, health authority and rail authority to explain their own positions and priorities and playing a strictly coordinating and refereeing role during the process. They also need to invite key departments within their own organisation to speak when residents raise concerns that involve them, for example environmental health departments on neighbourhood issues and finance departments when the sale of public land is involved.

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Finally, using the local newspapers as regular channels for communicating the progress of the planning process, the key concerns of residents and the responses of key stakeholders would enable those residents not attending the meetings to keep abreast of the key issues.

4.2.4 EIAs and environmental statements

Important contextual information on the social, political and cultural factors locally and the concerns of residents and other stakeholders could be explicitly incorporated into EIAs following the lead of the evolving methodology for health impact assessments (HIAs.) (Ison 2000). EIAs and their accompanying environmental statements could incorporate formally how each stakeholder views the risks, their key priorities and values, their perceptions of the other m stakeholders as well as the local social, cultural, economic and political context of the neighbourhood. This would provide a more holistic assessment for local decision-makers to base their decisions on as well as creating an important social, historical and technical data source for developing future public-centred strategiclevel policies and programmes. More specifically, it would allow all the stakeholders to understand the perspectives of the other parties by making explicit the key concerns and priorities that each stakeholder group has and why. It would create more open and sustained dialogue and communication between stakeholders and probably lead to a marked reduction in antagonism and conflict. Lastly, it would turn environmental statements into social, instead of just technical, documents that can be used as a research resource to understand how community perceptions of risks change over time as well as helping to develop better national and regional-level strategic waste management plans and assessments that are more in keeping with the values and wishes of lay publics.

Practically, one simple way to incorporate these views would be to have a section on the key stakeholders and to explicate their perspectives, concerns and priorities in terms of the siting and planning process. This would include what their objectives were, why, what they hoped to gain, what specific concerns they had and why these issues were important to them. Key stakeholders would include the developer, planning authority, community groups, health authority, waste authority and other NGOs. There would also need to be a historical element incorporating in some detail important social, cultural and economic aspects of the neighbourhood where the siting was proposed. This would include a history of the site, the previous developers and developments that had been rejected and the reasons why. It would also include what attempts had been made to involve different stakeholders during the EIA and the successes and failures in engaging them in the process.

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4.2.5 Expert-professionals & expert institutions

Expert-professionals and expert institutions have power in terms of knowledge, organisation and financial resources. This gives them a significant degree of control and certainty during siting and planning processes. Experts and expert-institutions need to relinquish and share their power with residents and work in partnership with them. They need to be more aware of the basis for lay publics perceptions of risks. As Wynne has argued, they and their institutions need to be trained to develop a reflective and reflexive professional approach during siting, consultation and planning processes (Wynne 1996). This is already happening in education and medicine where teachers and health professionals are developing the idea of the self-aware reflective and reflexive practitioner (Schon 1995; Johns 1998). This would make them more aware of their own attitudes and actions and how these impact positively and negatively on other stakeholders. It would also enable them to realise the value, validity and legitimacy of lay perspectives, knowledges and experiences. Furthermore, as Irwin points out, experts and institutions need to see environmental issues as hybrid problems that cut across conventional institutional boundaries and professional disciplines (Irwin 2001b).

Reflective-reflexive practitioners or postmodern professionals are more facilitators and practitioners than authorities and technicians. Their key characteristics include:

a recognition that they can be wrong and that they and their organisations have inherent limitations and biases, a recognition of the utility and validity of residents lay and professional knowledges and experiences, an understanding that they themselves have lay knowledges and experiences that they rely upon, a less directive and more guiding attitude, a partnership-based consensual decision-making approach in contrast to an authoritative expert one, an appreciation that they tend not to have to live with the consequences of their judgements and decisions during siting processes and the ability to be self-aware, reflect on their experiences and change their practice in the light of this awareness and reflection.

Siting and planning processes could also be made more reflective and reflexive by increasing the role of sociologists, anthropologists and community development practitioners who could add a dynamic element of reflection and reflexivity by identifying problems in stakeholder relationships and interactions earlier as well as helping to develop solutions to improve and enhance these

relationships as the process unfolded. Finally, a more reflective and reflexive process could be developed through workshops and seminars involving all the actors so that they can talk about, discuss and better understand the differing perceptions and concerns of other stakeholders and the reasons behind them.

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4.3 Conclusion Summary

This report argues that only by understanding residents and other stakeholders perceptions of risks can the siting and planning of WDFs and other types of technological facilities be undertaken in urban and rural communities without intense distrust, conflict and social and psychological harm being generated. A single siting and planning process should not be seen as isolated and on its own but as part of the wider set of societal siting and planning processes. Therefore, when these processes work badly and destroy the social and community relationships between residents, local governments and other stakeholders they have impacts that ripple through the wider society and to other siting and planning processes. The siting of WTSs is one instance where people are faced with the contradictions and compromises of modern societies, specifically, how most developments pose risks as well as benefits. Only by recognising this contradiction and the ambivalence and uncertainty that this generates can policies and decisions be made that are in the best interests of communities and societies. Modern societies can no longer have experts and expert institutions that uncritically and unreflectively apply a rationalist approach to dealing with societal issues. Instead, they must understand, value and incorporate the plural rationalities and understandings that lay publics and other stakeholders have in any given situation or process. Finally, sociology has a key role to play in uncovering and helping to understand the complex interactions between the social and the environmental and the way different stakeholders construct the social, the environment and risk.

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