The pandemic had a huge impact on everyone.  For TfL, it meant an emergency programme of temporary schemes to help people to walk and cycle called the London Streetspace Programme.  The emergency meant that our usual approach to consultation had to be put aside, and some of the schemes we introduced were hugely sensitive.  We came up with new ways to engage London’s communities and learnt a huge amount.

We can’t talk enough.  At every opportunity, we talked to communities in the vicinity of the schemes we’d introduced.  We made sure everyone knew who we were, what we were doing and how they could tell us their thoughts.  We were clear and transparent about the challenges we were facing and the impacts the temporary schemes were having.  And it worked: where we acknowledged issues, we saw that opposition reduced and support grew.

Simplicity is everything. Every group that wants to effect a change of some kind adopts a narrative to make a case for that change.  And in every case, that narrative is simple and direct.  Very often, however, our own narratives are caveated and complex; we lose our audience’s attention and risk losing the argument.  On every occasion we spoke to the community, we kept our messages simple and straight forward.

We can’t persuade everyone, and we shouldn’t be afraid of encouraging concerns.  There’s a train of thought that says that giving a community the opportunity to express potential concerns might actually encourage or generate those concerns, but I don’t buy that at all.  Our experience showed that some people supported the changes we introduced, some people opposed them, and a large number were ambivalent.  It was almost as if their opinions were ‘there for the taking’.  We encouraged anyone who had a concern about the schemes we were introducing to tell us.  We adopted an ‘active listening’ approach and repeated back the concerns we were hearing to the community.  We demonstrated that we were willing to listen.  No scheme ever receives universal support and we shouldn’t shy away from engaging the arguments our opponents want to have.

Publishing complex information doesn’t mean the end of the world.  I’ve lost count of the number of colleagues who worry about publishing complex information on the basis that doing so might lead to further questions.  We made a virtue out of doing exactly the opposite during the London Streetspace Programme.  We published complex charts showing bus journey time impacts, cycling rates and changes in traffic volumes.  Communities appreciated this data; they didn’t stampede to ask difficult questions; we didn’t get tied up in knots trying to explain it.  We paid the community the respect it deserves and were clear and transparent about matters that ordinarily might have been reserved for FOI requests only.  And the community acknowledged that and respected us in turn.

Digital platforms are here to stay.  A digital-only approach to engagement or consultation would be completely wrong: some people can’t get online and we mustn’t exclude them.  But the pandemic and the requirement to stay at home gave us an amazing opportunity to develop a new set of digital tools for engaging communities.  We embraced that opportunity and we’re much the better for it.

The pandemic has changed our world.  It may be that we don’t quite know yet what the ‘new normal’ actually looks like.  But we’re approaching this time having learned some enormously valuable lessons.  And possibly the most valuable lesson of all has been that we can continue to learn and to grow; we simply have to be aware of the possibility.

About the author

Andrew Miles

Consultation Specialist at Transport for London

I joined TfL in mid 2001 and have performed a variety of comms roles, including managing the Mayor’s Question Time process and relationship with Assembly Members and MPs for TfL Surface Transport.  I joined the TfL Consultation team in 2012 and have managed a variety of consultations on major projects, including the east London river crossings programme, Silvertown Tunnel and the transformation of  Oxford Street.  Since the spring 2020 I’ve co-led TfL’s engagement and consultation on the London Streetspace Programme.