A story about a planner and a taxi driver…
I was at the HOPS conference at the end of March, listening to inspirational stories about the things that planners do – from peatland restoration and rain gardens to low carbon buildings, marine planning and community wealth building.
When I came to speak – on National Planning Framework 4 and the challenge of climate change – one of my messages was about the stories we tell about planning, the things that planning does and the difference it makes. I’m not convinced that statistics about the time taken to process a planning application connects to people and their lives, or helps to counter conspiracy theories about low traffic neighbourhoods; and I think we need to get better about the stories we tell.
Later that day, the taxi driver taking me home from the station asked about my day. I said I’d been to Largs for a conference, and he asked what I did.
Me: “I’m a town planner, and I’ve been at the Heads of Planning Scotland Conference”
Taxi driver: “Oh. Well – I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but it sounds a bit, er, boring…’
Me: “I can understand why you might think that – but we were talking about climate change and how we can save the planet.”
Taxi man: “Oh! Okay then. That’s not boring. So, go on tell me how are we going to do it?”
Me: “As the saying goes, by doing everything, everywhere, all at once… “
Taxi man: “Cool, cool. But how are we going to afford it? Where’s the money going to come from?”
Me: “Yes, well we can’t afford not to do it, and doing it now will be cheaper than trying to fix it later. Let me give you an example – Sheffield calculated the costs of surface water flooding in the city, which was £ millions each year. As part of the solution they have added rain gardens to city streets – designed to capture and store surface water, slowing it down and keeping it away from the drains. The bonus is that the rain gardens are filled with flowers and plants, so they look nice and are good for insects. The nicer streets are good for businesses and there is more investment in the town centre.
So, investment in rain gardens saves money by reducing the costs of flooding and it generates other financial benefits too. When you start to look at how much climate change is costing us now, then you realise that there is money we can use for solutions!
Taxi man. “Yeah. That sounds pretty good. But where is the space. How do you fit the flowers and stuff into the streets?”
[As he asks this, we are driving along a wide street with 2 lanes of traffic in each direction and a hatched median]
Me: “Well in a street like this you could add a rain garden in the middle of the road, so it becomes a central reservation that is filled with flowers….”
Taxi man: “Yeah — I can see how that would work. Could be good, and I’ve learned something today!”
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It seemed like a perfect end to the day — telling a story about the things that planners are doing to address climate change and urban flooding whilst supporting biodiversity, human health and city economics. And, the thing that I loved was the way the taxi driver was immediately hooked into the climate change issue. He started by thinking that planning was boring – and he ended up with a story about flowerbeds and flooding.
