Being Awkward

Speaker: David Lambert

The allotments at Westbourne Road, Edgbaston in the 1990s, before community efforts resulted in their being registered as a nationally important example of “guinea gardens”. image: David Lambert

Community is an over-used word for an undervalued resource; an abused resource too, often taken for granted by decision-makers and policy makers.  Community participation often takes the form of resistance rather than collaboration.  Its stance, initially at least, is that of the outsider and its bottom-up perspective is inevitably disruptive of top-down views.   Almost by definition, community input is contrary and pugnacious at least until trust has been earnt.   For a community to make its voice heard it has to learn new rules of engagement and even learn a new language; it has to develop a thick skin to resist feeling excluded or patronised; and somehow to convert the fuel of anger into meaningful participation.

David Lambert is director of the Parks Agency.  These days he focuses less on consultancy and more on his local community.  He is a director of a community farm and is learning to be an activist, a milkman, a carer, a biodynamic gardener and an undertaker.