Don’t forget about the Peak District National Park Authority’s Open Meeting next week, 4pm to 7-30pm Tuesday 6th May at the Memorial Hall. The Environment Group are currently preparing their comments on the Authority’s draft Parwich Conservation Area Appraisal, but they copied to us the following email sent to Sue Adam (sue.adam@peakdistrict.gov.uk):
To Sue Adam (Peak District National Park Authority)
The Environment Sub-Group of the Parwich Village Action Group have asked me to contact you. As a group we have looked in detail at the draft Conservation Area Appraisal document. Overall we felt it is a well researched and positive document. We have some comments which are currently being circulated amongst our members for any corrections/editing/etc, but we hope to get them to you next week.
In relation to the Public Meeting next week we wondered if there was to be included any presentation to villagers as a group rather than only informal chat to individuals. People felt the Authority’s presentation when the Conservation Area was initially set up had been very useful. We were also wondering if the Community Development Officers who were instrumental in our group being set up and who have played an important role in the work that has happened locally over the last seven or so years are to attend the meeting? Further we were wondering if any Members of the Authority are involved at this stage. We felt it would be useful if Christopher Carr as the local Parish Council Representative and Members of the Planning Committee were invited to the Public Meeting.
I understood that feed-back is to consist of replies to individuals who comment, the Group felt it would be useful if you were able to produce an overall summary of comments and the resultant changes in the Draft. This could be done either at a further local meeting, or perhaps more realistically in writing which could be put on notice boards, in the Sycamore Inn, in the Legion Club and on http://www.parwich.org.
Finally we feel that it is important to look to how we can make use of your hard work so far, ensuring that programmes for future improvement are put in place. We would welcome the opportunity to meet with yourselves, the Planning Service, Community Development and Parwich Parish Council to see how we can incorporate your recommendations into our Village Plan. One point that comes out strongly in your recommendations is the need to put in place and to resource a means of maintaining the improvements that had been achieved by nonrecurring funding.
Peter Trewhitt
On behalf of the Environment Sub-Group of Parwich Village Action Group
The following response was also received today:
To the Environment Sub-Group
Re: Parwich Conservation Area Appraisal
I am writing with reference to your email of 30th April, regarding the Parwich Conservation Area Appraisal.
The first thing to mention is that the event on Tuesday 6th May is not a Public Meeting. It is intended to be an open drop-in session, to give individuals the opportunity for an informal one-to-one chat with Conservation Officers about the Appraisal. There will therefore be no formal presentation at the session, as this may inhibit people from raising issues, and would prevent Officers from providing one-to-one feedback to individuals.
You suggest, in your email, that the Community Development Officers and Members might attend the session. It would not be appropriate, in this instance, for the Community Development Officers to attend the event. The Members have been informed of the drop-in session. The accepted practice for the involvement of Members is that they have an opportunity to comment on the penultimate draft of the Appraisal. They then receive the final draft for consideration at the appropriate Planning Committee, after any amendments have been made, as appropriate, following Public Consultation.
An overall summary of comments and resultant changes is an interesting idea. However, the Authority does not have the resources both to respond to individual comments and to collate these comments and responses into a public document. On balance, it is felt to be more important for each individual to receive a response to their specific comments, and we are therefore unable to produce an overall summary.
In principle, the Authority would welcome the opportunity to review the Village Plan and to incorporate recommendations from the Appraisal. I have therefore passed your suggestion to the Community Development Officers. Once the draft Appraisal has been approved and adopted, they will be in touch with you. Please note, however, that they currently have a busy schedule and it may be a little while before they can arrange a meeting.
I would be grateful if you could pass this letter to the Environment Sub-Group of the Parwich Village Action Group, and hope that this addresses your queries.
Yours sincerely,
Sue Adam
Conservation Officer
Cultural Heritage
PARWICH.ORG 
Public consultation is always a difficult matter. Having conducted several evaluations of aspects of health provision for a large city, I know how hard it is to get things right, and was very lucky to be able to draw on specialists to support the process. A full consultation needs to use a variety of methods, but is essential if those most affected are to own the resultant document.
Offering people the opportunity to consult on written documents enables people to consider the detail, but may discourage a response to the broader issues of the document. Further it will dramatically reduce the number of people who respond, and means only those with very strong views will reply.
An open meeting that only allows people to discuss the issues on a one-to-one basis, will enable individuals to have their specific questions addressed, but leaves the power in the hands of the ‘experts’. It retains the focus on the detail and fails to allow the development of a local consensus.
A public presentation would have enabled people to gain an overview of the proposals, and been particularly helpful to those that do not have the time or the inclination to study a detailed 40 page document. Though perhaps not allowing individuals to raise their specific points, it would give both the Authority and those present a better idea of whether there is any local consensus.
In an ideal world a consultation would be carried out by someone other than the report authors, and allow opportunity both for one-to-one consultation with the authors and group discussion in various sized groups.
Further the failure to inform the community as a whole of the result of the consultation other than via the Planning Committee means the Community will not have any clear idea of what others think. Failure to involve other relevant Authority Departments and Members of the Authority, will leave control of how the report and local views are perceived in the hands of the authors. This again leaves the power in the hands of the ‘experts’.
The Conservation Area review process offers the Authority and the people of Parwich a chance to set a direction for our village over the next twenty years or so. For this to work the residents need to be committed to it. So far the Authority has not development a consultation process that will encourage that. Consequently we need to take a proactive role:
• discussions in such groups as the Parish Council and the Environment Group are important;
• people need to discuss appraisal with their friends and neighbours;
• perhaps people need to attend the consultation meeting with others and to ask the Conservation Officers to give overviews of both the purpose of the appraisal and how they characterise the conservation area as a whole;
• also hold your own informal focus groups in the Memorial Hall during the onpen consultation meeting;
• individuals need to share the responses they receive with each other, perhaps passing on copies of any letters and emails to the Parish Council or PARWICH.ORG;
• if individuals have concerns they should share them with others, the Parish Council and even Members of the Authority (Christopher Carr of Tissington is the local Parish Council representative on the Peak Park Board)