a recent email from TRACE to the Council

This email was sent by me today to the local authority's lead officer for the HMRI.

David Ball
Head of Housing and Regeneration
Wirral MBC

15th July 2005

Dear David

This is just a note to thank you for taking time with me yesterday. I did go back with my partner Caroline and spent more time at the exhibition. I managed to get some time with the developer. I also spoke to several members of TRACE who had visited the exhibition and we are planning a more formal get together over the next few days.

I recall from our discussions yesterday that key dates will be the Select Committee meeting on the 26th of July and the Cabinet meeting on the 3rd of August. I understand that a report will be made by your team to these meetings which will be designed to produce an agreed strategy to take forward the HMRI. I would like TRACE to have the opportunity to put a short paper to both of those meetings to represent our position and also to have the opportunity to speak to that paper at the meetings. Am I right in assuming that this will be at 6.15pm?

I have also noticed from minute 3 of the June Select Committee Meeting that the SIIF document for Wirral (which has been submitted to ODPM) sets out inter alia, the rational for HMRI in Church Road. Could I have a copy of that document please?

I have also assumed that there is somewhere a business plan (or is that the SIIF document?) which sets out the business case for the specific strategy envisioned for Church Road with budgets and forecasts. From my discussions with the developer yesterday I understand that the deal once confirmed will hand over development and sale of the properties on site after rebuilding - to them. I also understand that the brief so far from the Council to the developer has been exclusively concerned with demolition and rebuild rather than renovation of individual properties being kept alive as an option. Again I assume that the renovation option (which is the preferred one for TRACE) was explored and then discarded after an economic argument had been presented. Can I have sight of these documents please? If no such documents exist and the renovation option has not been explored and rejected on the basis of evidence then you will not be surprised to hear that TRACE thinks such an appriasal should be made as a matter of urgency.

At the risk of being overly pompous I have taken the liberty of digging out a definition of 'groupthink' which I argued to you yesterday was a danger in situations such as these. I think there may be gathering evidence that groupthink has driven at least some of the commitment to HMRI from the ODPM downwards, in the face of rising opposition from the grassroots to many of its implications. I have included the definition below and also a list of key symptoms of groupthink - some of which may be argued to apply here - particularly if there has been insufficient attention to risk assessment and to the investigation of alternatives to demolition.


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Groupthink is a term coined by psychologist Irving Janis in 1972 to describe a process by which a group can make bad or irrational decisions. In a groupthink situation, each member of the group attempts to conform his or her opinions to what they believe to be the consensus of the group. In a general sense this seems to be a very rationalistic way to approach the situation. However this results in a situation in which the group ultimately agrees upon an action which each member might individually consider to be unwise (the risky shift). Janis' original definition of the term was "a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action." ... Groupthink tends to occur on committees and in large organizations. Janis originally studied the Pearl Harbor bombing, the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Others have cited groupthink as a contributing factor in the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster as well as the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the bankruptcy of Enron, and more recently, the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003.

... the seven symptoms of decision affected by groupthink are:
Incomplete survey of alternatives
Incomplete survey of objectives
Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
Failure to re-appraise initially rejected alternatives
Poor information search
Selective bias in processing information at hand (see also confirmation bias)
Failure to work out contingency plans

(definition from wikipedia - the on line dictionary)
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Finally I should say in advance of the TRACE paper and speaking personally, that I think there is very much that is exciting and to be welcomed in the Church Road regeneration plan. There is enthusiasm here I would judge for the work that is needed on the frontage and commercial property. Our problem is with the specifics of what has been proposed for the housing behind Church Road. We will return to this once I have had the chance to consult the group more carefully on their responses to yesterday.


from ...
James Kay
Chairman
Tranmere Residents Association (Church Rd East) TRACE
21 Seymour Street Birkenhead CH42 5LG email jameslkay@ntlworld.com
0151 647 1903
07976 839 054