People’s Assemblies

Third Assembly a success with over 40 taking part

June 2025

UPDATE: there is an interview with Mark Potts on That’s TV and the link is here (6 June)

The third of the assemblies was held on Sunday 1st and 42 took part to discuss the suggestions put forward by the previous two. There was earnest debate on all the tables and there were some who were passionate about their topic or what was important to them. We ended up with our top five and these will go forward to contribute to the national debate. We hope some of those who volunteered to go to London will be able to do so to carry the message forward.

It occurred to me as the afternoon wore on listening to the debates on each of the tables, that where else is there for this kind of debate? Our election process – national or local – will consist of the parties telling you of their plans for the country or the area. You don’t get to debate them unless you are a member of one of the parties and even then, policy is often imposed from on high. If you go to a hustings, as I did last year, the candidates have their say and one or two from the audience get to ask a question, but there is no debate in any meaningful sense of the term. It’s all very ‘top down’ with non party members – the vast majority – being passive recipients of the supposed wisdom of our political masters.

Yet in the three assemblies, there were six hours of vigorous debate by a wide range of people. A few came more than once but the majority were first timers. Things didn’t quite go to plan as the last event was meant to be a game of two halves: each group to select their top five and then in the second half, to decide on the final five having heard what the other’s thought. Well, we more or less decided on the top five after the first session so the debate switched to suggesting which one or two topics were the most important.

What are the top five you are eager to discover:

1. Housing

Provide more good quality and low energy consuming homes, which are genuinely affordable and some of which will be in public ownership. Ensure that developers provide such homes, fully meeting their planning obligations and including the provision of appropriate and agreed infra-structure. [this is a combination of the various individual suggestions into one piece of text].

2. Transport

Produce and implement a traffic plan for the city with youth advocacy, that includes low emission zones, car free zones, people friendly routes, promotes active travel, considers 15-minute communities and free or cheap bus travel, especially for under 21s.

3. A Community Hub

Create a community hub for young people and families including 3G sports pitches and activities including life skills.

4. An Environmental Centre

Create an environmental centre which provides Salisbury’s residents with information on sustainable homes, travel and living. A permanent, free home will allow Ecohub to provide a better information and advice service to local residents.

Residents and the environment would benefit from this service as sustainable homes and transport save money while reducing greenhouse gases.

5. A College for Performing Arts in Salisbury.

Power

One of the topics which arose in several debates and in discussions afterwards, was the matter of where the power lies and who is in a position to deliver on any of these. If we take housing for example, why do we not have more affordable homes? Why are new houses going up around Salisbury and elsewhere, the majority of which do not have solar panels and are not built to zero emission standards? Why are we building on flood plains? Why are developers able to promise affordable homes at the planning application stage then amazingly, discover that once on site they cannot afford to actually provide them? These were all things discussed during our three sessions. It is likely that most involved at the local level – officers and councillors – are well aware of these problems yet are largely powerless to do anything about them. It’s about where power lies.

The government has decided that we need houses – lots of them. They have also stated that one of the major problems is the planning system (full disclosure: I am a Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, now retired). Reform the system they claim and Hey Presto! masses of houses will appear to solve the problem. There are one or two snags though. Firstly, the developers already have 2 or more years of land with planning permissions in the bag but are not building on them. Some people have alleged it is because land is an appreciating asset so it can sit on the balance sheet steadily getting more valuable. It is also alleged that the big builders decide among themselves where to build so as not to depress prices by all building in the same vicinity. To build houses you need services: boring things like drains, a supply of fresh water, electricity, roads and somewhere to send the err, foul water. If local planning committees point some of these issues out, and maybe turn down the application for this or other reasons, the developer can appeal knowing they will get a favourable hearing. The Minister might also call it in and decide for himself.

So you can ‘reform’ (=weaken) the system and you will get more houses but they will be poorly insulated, packed in together, and without solar panels. Oh and you can kiss goodbye to any affordable homes.

But back to the assemblies which demonstrated that this is a matter of great concern to people. They are unhappy at seeing huge estates appearing with no doctor’s surgery, sometimes no shop or community space – just rows of lookalike houses. They think it ludicrous that houses should be built on land susceptible to flooding. One of the issues today with our febrile political system is the wide dissatisfaction people have with it. They feel marginalised. They feel not listened to. They say things like ‘they’re all the same’ which is not true but widely believed.

So maybe this exercise is a small contribution to allowing people more say in their affairs. It has revealed a thirst by people to have their say, not just tick a box at an election and then be forgotten.

What next?

We will be contributing to the national event and locally, we want to follow through with the City and Wiltshire Councils. One of our goals is a citizen’s assembly a place where policy matters of moment can be discussed involving experts and local people. We want to move away from the process where people are invited to comment on policies more or less agreed anyway, a kind of tokenism.

Peter Curbishley

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The next Democracy Café is on Saturday 14 June starting at 10:00 in the Central Library.