The problem of having an opinion and wanting the evidence to fit it. I’ve corrected the post to (hopefully) address my error.

I don’t think, as I said in my footnotes, it changes the main thrust though, that dialogue, shared understanding and mutual goals should be the ideal for local government. And learning from what didn’t work, as well as what did, is important.

One thing I am looking at (for something else) is the differential between election results across London and the swing towards the controlling Labour group in Lambeth was among the largest in London. There are lots of other factors, and I’ve not looked at ward level, but it might suggest there is some electoral benefit in such engagement, even if it isn’t always totally successful.

I think though I may have inadvertently confused you, as my post touched on three distinct neighbourhoods and schemes. I don’t live in the immediate area of Van Gogh Walk and had no involvement at all in the consultation process with those who do live there. From what I have seen of it just walking through the area, it looks fantastic, which is why I described it in the post as ‘undoubtedly a real success’.

The dialogue you quoted from my post is about my own immediate local area and though it’s deliberately in informal language, I would stand by its being an accurate summary of the consultation process. The initial demand from residents was probably a bit unrealistic in terms of what could be provided, partly because expectations were not set outstandingly well – hence ‘and a pony’ – but the response from Lambeth was poorly thought through and found very little favour. I think that makes me disappointed rather than cynical – but the critical point is that the two passages you quote are not talking about the same thing so can’t directly be compared.

What all this has made me think about – and the real point of writing my post – is very much in line with what you say here about Lavender Hill. The first difficulty is in divining what residents want, and is perhaps even harder than it often looks to those doing the divining. But the second is that once we have discovered what is wanted, there may well be reasons – both good and bad – why that can’t be delivered. Going through an elaborate process to address the first difficulty with very limited capacity to address the second may not leave people feeling massively better off.

I don’t want to decry the attempt Lambeth has made here, which was brave and ambitious. But I don’t think it quite came off, and if we are going to learn from this example, we need to learn from what it didn’t achieve as well as what it did.