## Notes from 13 May 2025 [[2025-05-12|← Previous note]] ┃ [[2025-05-14|Next note →]] I liked [this piece](https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/britain-is-a-consultation-nation) from [Sam Dumitriu](https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu) (from [[Britain Remade]]). My francophile side showed up without warning. The argument is simple and persuasive: Britain used to be able to build; now it mostly consults. Infrastructure projects get tangled up in endless rounds of public consultation, often less about improving design and more about shielding developers from the legal challenges that [[Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY)|NIMBY]]'s pursue in the courts. By forcing multiple consultations, opponents find new ways to delay, complicate or even block progress before resorting to litigation. Consultation, a tool for democratic input, becomes a defensive bureaucratic ritual. As a result, everything gets slower, more expensive and sometimes worse. I get it. In Brazil, the second military dictatorship (1964–1985) built a lot without asking anyone. Some of it was [remarkable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu_Dam), but much of it was [disastrous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Amazonian_Highway). In reaction, we embraced consultation. Now, we consult everything and do it badly. We tick the participation box, delay decisions, and still fail to listen. France, interestingly, seems to have found a middle path. They created a [[Commission Nationale du Débat Public (CNDP)|national commission for public debate]] (_[Commission Nationale du Débat Public](https://www.debatpublic.fr/)_, or CNDP), with a clear mandate: to organize consultation, not to drown in it. There’s a purpose, a timeline, and once a decision is taken, it holds. No perpetual reopening of the process in court. Each actor does their part: consultation at the right time, then forward motion. The key, perhaps, is not whether to consult, but _how_. Consult just right, which demands more than ambition alone. It requires both the domain expertise of seasoned practitioners and the financial resources to sustain robust processes. Institutional architecture matters just as much — get it wrong, and you incur far higher opportunity costs (not to mention the billable hours racked up by an overburdened justice system). That’s why it’s past time to professionalize consultative and participatory methods for real, embedding clear governance structures, dedicated budgets and technology from day one. For a concrete example of what this can look like in practice, check out [this recently announced initiative](https://demos.co.uk/waves-tech-powered-democracy/) (Waves, by [[Demos]] and allies).