The drop in session at the Ethel Wood Centre in Pevensey Bay over the gas network update planned to begin in November, descended into chaos today as the mood of the meeting and the numbers of people present forced organisers to scrap the notion of a drop-in session and start talking to the community—Bay Life, 19 October 2016
The meeting held jointly by East Sussex Highways and SGN descended into chaos today as organisers were forced to abandon their drop-in approach to the session and turn proceedings into a town hall forum. The event was saved by SGN Construction Manager Steve Colvin, who began to answer questions directly from the crowd that was still gathering as he took to the ad hoc stage.
By the start of the proposed drop in session, eight staff from the two organisations were on hand with a well presented display of information about what is proposed for the revised, now four phases of work.
By 4:20pm, with a planned start for 4:30pm, people began to filter in at a mildly alarming rate. By 4:30pm the hall was already filling, with something like 80 people present.
Free pencils, jelly bean boxes and SGN key rings did not seem to interest people, one by one they made a beeline for staff in an effort to get their questions answered.
With groups forming around each member of staff craning their necks to listen in to the conversation, it was clear within ten minutes that the notion of a ‘drop in session for individuals to get their questions answered’ was not going to work.
More people filtered in and there was a general melee, at which point East Sussex Highways was advised to at least have someone on the door to greet people. One of the staff valiantly fought her way through the crowd answering questions as she went, and began to focus on the foyer, keeping people informed about the proceedings as they came in to the hall.
At 4:45pm, as chaos began to ensue, Sue Harris from Beachlands stood on a chair at the back of the hall and began to lambast the organisers over the event, shouting at the two key figures and pointing, explaining that they should get themselves to the front of the hall now and start talking to the people gathered.
In the circumstances the organisers had little choice but to abandon the format of the meeting and accede to the wishes of the crowd. By this time the crowd had swelled to something like 120 people, with more people gathering in the foyer looking in as the format of the meeting was abandoned.
One couple from Beachlands told Bay Life that they felt they had been laughed at with their questions by a member of the team. Groups muttering on their own had formed in the hall and outside, as well as another group in the foyer, a fourth group had gathered outside the building.
The event was saved by SGN Construction Manager Steve Colvin, who took to the stage with a colleague from East Sussex Highways.
As he began a clear explanation of why the work was necessary, how the planning would work and what contingency plans were in place, the crowd began to calm a little and listen to what he had to say.
What helped the situation was happenstance. Steve began by explaining that he was a local man living in Coast Road, Pevensey Bay. Without that start and without the divulgence of this piece of information, the meeting might have descended into complete chaos.
The critical moment in saving the day with the event, was his decision to invite questions from the floor, once he had finished speaking.
His colleague from East Sussex Highways also offered an explanation about contingency plans, which did not appear to go down at all well.
Sadly the colleague could not be heard and was asked a number of times to ‘speak up’ by members of the audience.
Someone in the audience propped up by a radiator against one of the walls of the hall with work clothes in evidence, leaned over to Bay Life and offered the view that the state of proceedings did not bode well for what was to come with the nine weeks planned work.
He said, ‘if they could not see that this meeting might go wrong and they did not even to bring a microphone as part of the plan, what does that say about their contingency planning, it hardly speaks well for the next nine weeks does it? This is ridiculous, they had no contingency plan even for this meeting”.
Direct questions then began to get direct answers. Why no leaflets until now? Steve Colvin explained that if leaflets were sent out too early, then people forgot what was said and that they tried to get it right with the timing.
In an impassioned and articulate speech from the front of the audience, Chairman of the Pevensey Parish Council, Maurice Gilbert, making clear that he was speaking on behalf of the Parish Council, asked East Sussex Highways to give an account of their catalogue of failures and broken promises to the people of Pevensey Bay over the last two years. His question did not receive a clear answer.
Christmas arrangements, questions about the traffic that will be re-directed by the diversion, in particular the weight of some vehicles, contingency plans for the possibility of the need for fire services were also answered, together with a wbole range of other matters.
The answers given for the most part were clear and direct. Amongst the surprises was the view offered with regard to the contingency bus services to Beachlands, which will involve smaller Cuckmere buses,. The plans, it became clear, with a little over ten days to go, are still at an early stage.
Whilst the information was not divulged at the meeting, Bay Life has been told that the first time the smaller bus was trialled was only yesterday (Tuesday October 18) and that the bus got stuck.
The wrong leaflet was published by East Sussex Highways on Monday (17 October), made available to download on social media. the leaflet had to be withdrawn.
The leaflet has been replaced now by the right one. This was made available at the meeting and seen by people for the first time at the ‘drop-in session’.
The leaflet is also now in the process of being delivered to residents and the delivery should be complete by the end of this week,
A number of people continued to ask why the leaflet had only been made available from today.
At about 5:45pm there were four meetings being held simultaneously in the hall.
From the front the atmosphere was one of resignation as some people began to leave.
At the back of the hall two groups had formed busy discussing specific issues.
In the foyer two staff from East Sussex Highways were seen talking to another group of something like 15 or more people . The foyer door swung back and forth with the aim of keeping the sound down so that the speakers could still be heard inside on the ad hoc stage,
Outside a small group had gathered to summarise their experience.
A woman turned left, disappearing down the twitten at the side of the hall with the words ‘utterly, utterly ridiculous’.
From inside the hall, local Coast Road resident Chris Tyhurst gave Bay Life a cogent explanation with regard to what he had witnessed.”I told them that this would happen. Look, they have caused the problem, the least they could have done was to organise a formal meeting that would explain things to residents, they should have been up there at the front from the start, answering questions”.
He added ,”the right way for them to have done this was to stand there and take the questions”.
He was clearly speaking on behalf of a constituent element in the audience.
UKIP County Councilor, Mike Pursglove told Bay Life that he felt that ‘the meeting could have been organised in a different way, What was done was clearly inappropriate for the circumstances”.
By 6:10pm the episode was almost over as people, frustrated started to filter out of the hall. Bay Life left at about this time. Booked until 8:00pm, presumably the organisers had time to consider what had taken place.
What we witnessed was a PR disaster and a half. Tabled for question should be why the event was organised in this way.
As well as all the literature and leaflets, the visuals provided by SGN were excellent, laid out long ways on tables for people to view and see that their questions were answered.
With only eight staff to field these questions and something like 180 people at one point, the organisation and planning began to break down within ten minutes of the start. The absence of even a microphone as part of a contingency plan to talk to people looks in retrospect, to have been one of a number of failures in the planning of the event.
Most people could not even get to the visuals to see what was laid out for them, let alone get any of their questions answered.
When resident, Sue Harris stood on the chair at the back of the hall within 15 minutes of the start of the meeting shouting instructions to the organisers to stand at the front of everyone and start answering some questions it became clear that she was not just speaking for people in Beachlands, but for the community.
To his credit big Steve Colvin, SGN Construction Manager saved the day by taking to the ad hoc stage to calm people down, but surely this should not have been necessary.
There are lessons to be learned for both East Sussex Highways and SGN. Stop pretending with communication events of this description and start to get it right.
The meeting was still being discussed in the 1066 store an hour later. One women at the counter talked about the experience in relation to comments by her father. She explained that he had come away from the meeting with the comment ‘ridiculous’. The word seemed to sum up what people felt about the meeting.
The debacle of this meeting and what happened will reach higher levels in both East Sussex Highways and SGN.
Of course there is an argument that they are damned if they do and damned if they do not in relation to organising community consultation events.
Having said that, there was something awry here from the start. There was a misplaced sense of the concerns of the community with regard to their views of the two organisations. This resentment and mistrust had clearly built up over a number of years.
Perhaps both East Sussex Highways and SGN should have realised that this might be the case. In the circumstance the planning of this meeting looks to have been, st best, ill thought out.
There are two weeks until the proposed work begins. The organisations concerned will be held to account. It will be requested that they fix what was a community disaster of the PR event.
There are real concerns now and there will be perhaps new concerns when the work has begun .What contingency plans are there to talk to the community once the work has begun? There appear to be none.
This proposed work is part of a £624,000 project. How much does it cost to book a community hall and start listening to people?
At one point Sue Harris from Beachlands even climbed on the ad hoc stage herself and began to field questions from the audience.
If the organsiations think nothing will happen as a result of this debacle, they are wrong. People will now begin to ask you why this happened and what they intend to do to make things right. The first thing they should do is to start to take local people seriously.
Following the meeting, Pevensey Parish Councillor, Helen Burton, speaking in a personal capacity said, “I can only comment in a personal capacity but I understand residents anger about the lack of planning and information regarding this road closure.
“The leaflet is excellent but all residents should have received it a month before the closure in order to allow a proper consultation between SGN, East Sussex Highways and the public.
“I still have grave concerns about access for emergency vehicles during this time, and whilst we were told at the meeting that Cuckmere Buses would be providing a bus service every hour, when I asked for more details it seemed like plans were not yet completely in place for this”.
Dianne Dear, Wealden District Councillor for Pevensey and Westham (who is also the publisher of Bay Life), commented after the meting, “after last evening (19 October) in Ethel Wood I managed to speak to one woman from ESCC and I asked her why the gas works had not been finished earlier months before, when Coast Road was dug up with a lot of disruption.
“Her answer was, ‘I wasn’t aware that Coast Road had previously had works done when exactly was that?’ Do they ever talk to each other?”
Bay Life believes that three things should happen now.
There should be the organisation of a formal meeting at the Ethel Wood Hall in the next two weeks in the lead up to the proposed work. The meeting should begin with an apology. There should be enough chairs and time allocated so that people can get answers to their questions.
There will be many more questions in the next two weeks. A meeting should be organised so that these questions are answered and so that everyone can hear the answers. The Chairman of Pevensey Parish Council, Maurice Gilbert should be invited to chair the meeting.
From tomorrow (October 20) there should be organisation of the visuals and profile of the project that no one saw today. They should be made available on the display boards in the newly reopened library so that the whole community can see the plan on a daily basis.
There should be an arrangement made for a community liaison officer from East Sussex Highways and SGN to be working within the community from next week.
The organisations should ensure that the person can answer the questions that will be directed to them.
The person should be positioned in the newly reopened library so that they are accessible to the whole community. Publicity should be provided to make clear where they are based.
The liaison officer should start working with the community within the next few days and remain in post and on site for the full ten days in the lead up to the start of the proposed work.
Most importantly, the people of Pevensey Bay should not be taken for granted, as they were today.
Whilst the event today was a debacle, it is to be hoped that the message to both East Sussex HIghways and SGN will be heard and that steps will be taken to retrieve what is currently a PR disaster of a situation.
It is important in our view, given the critical nature of the circumstances, that both East Sussex Highways and SGN continue to talk to the community.
Simon Montgomery
Editor, Bay Life
