hectares nature reserve incorporating rare wild- fowl and mammals.
Option
2:
a Fen centre A proposal, developed by Norfolk College of
Arts and Technology and others, for a multi-use recreation and tourism centre.
Option
3:
incremental de6elopment A proposal that wetland creation should be
encouraged all over the Fens through small-scale, farmer-led initiatives, such as changed ditch man-
agement practices and the digging of ponds.
Option
4:
no deliberate action The proposal that wetland creation should not
be positively encouraged by public authorities and public money.
Each of the first three options were genuine proposals seeking public funding and the support
of various public authorities; they also repre- sented different approaches to wetland creation,
emphasising different objectives. Option 4 offered the Jury the opportunity to reject the idea of
wetland creation altogether. Options 1 to 3 would be largely funded from different sources, and did
not seek to use the same land sites. Hence Options 1 to 3 were not, as originally proposed to the
jurors, mutually exclusive and the Jury was not required to choose between them if it did not wish
to. The Jury was required, however, to show where the money to support its favoured options
would come from. The Jury was also allowed to design new options as it saw fit.
The Jury were given short presentations by, and were then able to question, a number of ‘wit-
nesses’, experts on different aspects of the ques- tion being considered. Most of the witnesses were
selected with the advice of the advisory group. They were encouraged to present their arguments
concisely, and to avoid technical language.
The Jury was regularly asked to split into three small groups — the composition of the groups
changing each time — in order to deliberate on a particular issue in detail. Except on the first day,
these small groups were not moderated by the project team. They were given a task and left to
discuss it on their own. Each group appointed a spokesperson to report back their discussion to a
plenary session of the whole Jury. The proceedings of the Jury were recorded in a
number of ways.
Summaries of small group discussions and ple- nary sessions were prepared during the Jury on
flip charts by the jurors themselves.
Written records of the plenary discussions were kept by the moderator and facilitators.
Tape recordings were made of the entire pro- ceedings, including both the small group dis-
cussions and the plenary sessions.
An evaluation questionnaire was completed by each juror individually at home after the final
day. The Jury’s conclusions and recommendations
as a whole, as summarised below, were unani- mous. Although some jurors abstained or regis-
tered dissenting
votes on
some individual
conclusions on no occasion were there more than three such abstentions or dissenting votes, all the
jurors accepted the conclusions of the Jury as a whole. The next section is drawn from the Report
of the Ely Jury Aldred and Jacobs, 1997, a description of the Jury’s findings compiled by us
from the above records and endorsed individually by all the jurors. However, unlike the report itself,
the following summary makes no attempt to be comprehensive, aiming instead to indicate the
type of deliberation that takes place in a CJ. Some effort is also made to distinguish between recom-
mendations that simply represented endorsements of pre-existing proposals outlined to the Jury by
their advocates, and creative recommendations developed by the Jury during its deliberations.
3. The Jury’s conclusions and recommendations
Option 1, the nature reserve proposed by a pro-conservation charity was strongly supported.
Such a nature reserve would protect rare species of flora and fauna and reintroduce rare species,
including mammals such as deer, wild horses, wild boar, beavers and otters. It would be of a suffi-
cient size for the land to be largely ‘self-managed’ through animal grazing, thus creating a ‘semi-
wilderness’ area.
The Jury felt it important that rare species should be protected, particularly given the possi-
bility of sea level rise that would damage or destroy coastal habitats. A significant majority of
the jurors were impressed by the proposals to re-introduce species that had been lost from the
area over centuries and to enable the habitats to develop without major human interference or
management.
There was disagreement over how large the reserve should be. The Jury discussed the merits
of various sizes. It was argued on the one hand that the wildlife benefits would not be significantly
greater at a larger size, but on the other that, if the funding was available, the larger the area the
better. The Jury supported a bid by the advocates of the nature reserve to a funding agency for
£25 – 35 million over ten or more years. However, they were sceptical about whether this would in
fact be enough to buy the area of land envisaged: both because the land identified was high quality
agricultural land, and because once the site was identified land prices would be likely to rise. One
juror specifically wanted option 1 smaller in order to leave money available for economic develop-
ment activities, given the Jury’s rejection of op- tion 2. Others argued that options 1 and 2 were
not competing directly against each other, because they were seeking financial support from different
UK and European government agencies. Some jurors suggested that the more ambitious the pro-
ject, the more likely it was to attract funding. It was pointed out that, though large, the funding
was required over a period of two or three decades, not all at once. Several jurors were wor-
ried that in the process of applying for funds, the scale of the project was bound to be bargained
down; it was better therefore to start on the larger size.
The Jury considered the location of the Re- serve. They were unhappy that the site identified
was owned by a pension company, which meant that the proceeds of the land sale would not be
retained in the Fens area. The Jury also suggested that on alternative sites, at cheaper former gravel
pit locations, it might be possible to make the creation of wetland part of the mandatory
restoration responsibilities of the minerals extrac- tion company. The proposal that alternative sites
be explored which addressed these points was added to option 1.
Option 2, the Fen Centre, was unanimously rejected by the Jury. They were not attracted by
the ‘superficial’, ‘theme park’ character of the proposal. Jurors were sceptical about the claims
made for the centre in terms of visitor numbers, and did not feel overnight visitor stays were realis-
tic. Some felt that too much activity was being crammed into too small an area. Jurors argued
that the centre offered few environmental benefits since it was planned to attach the centre to an
existing wetland reserve rather than create a new wildlife site. The Jury felt that the centre was too
small to create many jobs, and that the jobs created would not be very high quality — they
would be menial and seasonal.
The Jury decided that some of the educational and recreational activities proposed in option 2
visitor centre, camping, fishing should be incor- porated into option 1. The Jury concluded that,
although the Fen Centre might be eligible for special government funding to support job cre-
ation, etc., such funds would better be used for other kinds of economic development activities.
Option 3, incremental development, was unani- mously supported. The Jury accepted the argu-
ment that it was important to provide habitats for wildlife all over the Fens and not simply in sepa-
rate sites, and that significant efforts could be made and were already being made by landown-
ers with relatively small incentives. This approach would essentially build upon and extend existing
initiatives and good practice; the consequences either in terms of new wetlands or improved
management of existing wetlands would generally be of modest scale, but more widely distributed.
In most of these schemes, landowners retain con- trol of their land and may withdraw from the
scheme if they wish, e.g. because of changes in economic conditions for farming, water shortages
or flood defence requirements. The Jury generally regarded this flexibility as a significant advantage.
The Jury made a number of detailed additional proposals, focusing on making existing grants
more accessible to farmers. The organisation dis- tributing funds should be local-community-based,
with representation from farmers themselves. Other proposals included: planning permission for
reservoirs should only be granted where wildlife benefits are included in the design; stricter control
of boreholes and of irrigation practices, with abuse attracting penalties.
Option 4, no deliberate action, was unani- mously rejected.
Additional Option. An entirely new option for a local wholesale centre to distribute fruit and veg-
etables produced in the Fens titled a ‘Fens Covent garden’ after a famous market in Lon-
don, was developed and supported in principle by the Jury. It was developed following consider-
able discussion about the nature of agriculture in the Fens and food consumption and retailing
patterns in society generally. Jurors were dis- turbed at the distances travelled by Fen produce
and felt that more of the added value in distribu- tion should be retained in the Fens area. They
thought the job creation and economic develop- ment potential of a wholesale centre would be
significant. However, some jurors expressed fears that it would become monopolised by the
larger firms; they argued that care had to be taken in its design and management. The Jury
recommended that local produce should be branded and marketed as such for example as
‘Fen food’ and distributed from a local wholesale centre.
4. The Ely Jury methodology
