Abstract
There are salutary lessons from contrasting community consultation efforts in 2011 and 2015 to develop and gain support for an urban stormwater management plan for the Brownhill Creek catchment in Adelaide, South Australia. The 2011 process was a failure in the human dimension, precipitating loss of community confidence, unnecessarily entrained thousands of hours of time of residents who initiated a community action group for environmental conservation and caused a three-year delay to decision making. By contrast, the 2015 process was vastly improved, resulted in a landslide level of support for an obvious option not previously offered, achieved the required level of flood protection, saved Aus$5 million (14%) on the previously proposed option and protected a highly valued natural environment from an unnecessary dam. This paper presents a rarely heard perspective on these community consultation processes from a participating community environmental and heritage conservation action group (the Brownhill Creek Association) that was deeply engaged in reforming the Draft Brown Hill Keswick Creek Stormwater Management Plan. This reveals that the community needs to see that all options are considered and to have access to accurate information with which to assess them. It is also necessary that the proposed plan is consistent with existing agreed plans and policies developed through public consultation. Community concerns need to be heard, acknowledged and acted upon or responded to, and the consultation process needs to be transparently fair and democratic to win community support. A major contributor to success in the second consultation was that all community action groups were invited to meetings to discuss the purpose of the consultation and the methods to be used. Feedback was subsequently received before the process commenced to show what had changed and why any suggestions concerning the consultation process were not being adopted. This openness helped to mend the distrust of the first consultation process and is recommended as an essential early step in any public consultation process.
Highlights
IntroductionBrown Hill Creek catchment that transects the Adelaide metropolitan area
Flood management interventions had been under consideration for more than 10 years for theBrown Hill Creek catchment that transects the Adelaide metropolitan area
The primary issue was that the 100-year average return interval (ARI) flood was considered to inundate up to 7000 residential and commercial properties, predominantly in the downstream area [1] (Brown Hill Keswick Creek Stormwater Project (BHKCSP), August 2012)
Summary
Brown Hill Creek catchment that transects the Adelaide metropolitan area. This was due to the range of alternatives and their combinations, their nested scales, and there being quite divided opinions in the community over elements of the evolving plan. The primary issue was that the 100-year average return interval (ARI) flood was considered to inundate up to 7000 residential and commercial properties (across two catchments), predominantly in the downstream area [1] (Brown Hill Keswick Creek Stormwater Project (BHKCSP), August 2012). In the Brownhill Creek catchment, the consultants proposed channel works downstream and a flood control dam in the foothills upstream, that would bisect the 5 km long and 100 m wide Brownhill Creek Recreation Park (established 1841). This paper briefly describes the institutional and geographic setting that led to the case study presented, the technical and public consultation domains, and discusses the local political processes that influenced the outcome
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