In Port News 04/08/2016
All hail the masterplan, the document that will mould a port’s future for the next 10, 20 or even 30 years. It establishes policies and guidelines to direct the future development of a port, and implements structure at every level, across every facility and every asset.
Clearly, it is a crucial part of the consenting process and yet all too often masterplans are not given the thought they need. But is it really worth saving $10,000 now if what you get will cost you $100,000 in missed revenue, problems with intolerant communities and key stakeholders, or headaches over issues relating to environmental risk?
Instead, putting the time, money and effort into creating an effective masterplan that defines long-term objectives, and considers risk as well as context, flexibility, and engagement with key stakeholders and communities is extremely worthwhile. Not forgetting key to turning out a relatively intact product, says Paul Connelly, director of planning and regeneration at LDA Design.
Risk and reward
Understanding and addressing risk in the masterplan is key to the consenting process, and there are two ways to do this.
The first approach considers operational requirements. People, property and resources are all fed into an operational driven port business. It’s self-contained, insulated and traditional, and results in fragmented or incremental development.
While there is nothing wrong with this approach, it is the least efficient, says Mr Connelly. “It can be confusing to decision makers because you only get a small piece of understanding about what’s going on. Where is the bigger picture that says where you’re going, and the clarity and the understanding about the site as a whole and how it works?”
He adds that this often leads to distrusted motives. “There’s a lack of appreciation of context and the focus is almost always going to be on the negatives because there aren’t enough clear positive messages because the positive messages are the big picture ones.”
Decision makers are hugely influenced by the longer term picture. Natural England and Highways England, for example, are looking at long term big issues, and that’s often where their objections come from. Subsequently, if a longer term perspective isn’t presented, their concerns are not being addressed.
The second approach looks at port business within a wider changing context. “It recognises that there are opportunities associated with the change that may not be related to traditional port activity,” says Mr Connelly. “There’s a willingness to think about things more naturally, so some of those resources aren’t focused purely on operations.”
Some decisions are based on other aspects of port business, such as diversification, raising values and communications. It’s a different, more positive approach to the first that not only minimises business risks associated with change, but also maximises the business advantage from it.
Clear vision
Both approaches could, however, benefit from more strategic port planning. This means knowing the business objectives behind port development, and, therefore, having a clear rationale and strong business case to underpin the proposal and be used as a helpful reference point in negotiations in the consenting process.
“You should be defining objectives for a 10 to 25-year period ideally,” says Mr Connelly. “If it’s part of a longer term plan, knowing those objectives upfront so that the masterplan can be right for consenting strategy, engagement strategy and so on is very important.
“Once you’ve got the objectives, you need the direction. This gives a clear understanding about where the port is going, what its ambitions are and gives decision makers the confidence that things that are heading in that direction are being done responsibly.”
Mr Connelly adds that having business objectives can even influence your land strategy in terms of whether or not you need to rationalise, acquire or dispose land.
Having a clear transition plan is also an important part in terms of sweating the asset and describing to key decision makers what it is you’re trying to achieve. There is almost always a phasing plan, but what is phase five for the first ten years? How is it being used? And, how will it change over time?
Above all else, clarity on objectives and strategy in addition to context makes the consenting process so much easier and more effective, and results in a product that hasn’t been compromised by the planning process.
For instance, the traditional approach begins with commercial and operational drivers using an engineering led solution to come up with an idea configured in a particular way. Once this is put into the planning process, however, it is hit by issues relating to context, environment and politics, among more, and often comes out the other end as a rather compromised product.
Whereas a much simpler and more effective way is to take that context upfront; understand it and then get on with the design. This, of course, involves some upfront cost, but you end up with a product that is still relatively intact.
Flexibility
Pressure on land, economic uncertainty and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive, which is expected to be transposed into UK law next year, means that building flexibility into the masterplan is just as important.
Already, ports are limited on where they can go. With a million new homes proposed in the UK alone between now and 2020/2021, however, restrictions on site location can only be expected to get worse. The Chinese market and local factory closures are added to the mix. These are big issues that port businesses also need to consider and respond to in their masterplan.
Mr Connelly suggests building in diversification of business, being less resilient on key single customers, and having more resilience and contingency in the master plan, such as strategies to manage transitions between on situation and another.
He continues that in residential development, new settlements and so on, there is something called a ‘structural framework plan’, which might include six to 10 absolutely fundamental things and fixtures that have to be there in addition to flexibility elsewhere.
“The combination of the fixed and flexible plus this framework plan gives the local authority and the key decision makers a really clear understanding about the scope of change they can anticipate going forward,” he concludes.
Know your neighbours
A successful port masterplan involves clear communication between everybody with a relationship to the project, from local authorities to stakeholders to nearby residents.
According to Paul Connelly, director of planning and regeneration at UK-based LDA Design, building a relationship with key decision makers is especially useful. “I want to be in a position, as the lead planner, to go to the case officer and say, ‘I think this might be a problem, what do you think?’, and receive an honest response back from that,” he says.
“Similarly, I want the case officer to be able to come to me and say, ‘This issue is emerging. I don’t want to put it on record so can we just handle it now?’.” The other part of that, he adds, is identifying early on a senior official that you can go to if things get a bit sticky.
Localism is arguably higher on the political agenda than it ever has been, and so it is also important to engage with local communities. Mr Connelly continues: “Communities are gaining a much clearer understanding about where they fit into the planning process and have realised that they actually have a huge amount of power. They also have a reduced tolerance for things they don’t like.
“These are your neighbours. If you’re expecting to be on your site for 30, 50, 100 years, you need to try and get on with them, and remember that you’ve got things that they want and they’ve got things that you need in terms of that support.”
Mr Connelly adds that often developers are very dismissive of talking to communities as well as engaging with stakeholders, which is simply not the right way to resolve issues. In fact, that’s the way to get hit with a brick wall.
“Talking to people, seeing the whites of the eyes, drawing the sting and understanding what it is you’re up against is important,” he says. “It might be that the first meeting you have is hideous, but at least you know where you stand and you can plan accordingly, discuss and/or resolve.”
More than anything else, he says, it’s about building and maintaining good relationships so that you’re able to accommodate change over time.
