Neighbourhoods: consultants with an understanding of democracy needed

When we think about regenerating neighbourhoods we need to let the sun in not consultants, British experts who for example, visited US projects from the late 80’s and 1990’s then presided over the closure of great working class schools, bussing working class children into new areas without capacity to meet their educational needs.

If there are to be consultants then we need consultants who are accountable, aware of the desire of people to be included, to participate. To rejuvenate the neighbourhoods we need to move on from costly, wasteful IT and software projects not related to the individuals, micro businesses, SMEs, markets, that are only seen as important to be marketing for inward investment. We need balance, to replace that missing layer of understanding, representation and value to nurture that effort and that input.