ABSTRACT
Chapters Four and Five have shown a considerable consensus attitude is already embedded in the Netherlands’ decision-making tradition. For example, Dutch planning holds a high degree of consensus concerning its main goals over long periods of time. In addition, due to e.g. geographical conditions and cultural factors, Dutch planning turned out to be a highly organised and collective activity. Consensus-oriented approaches, then, have contributed to a well-established system of public participation and consultation. Planners in the Netherlands spend a considerable amount of their time in formalised and informal consultation meetings with institutionalised interest groups and government agencies. Chapter Four showed that such a corporist system also has some drawbacks. These drawbacks resulted in a renewed interest in more extensive consensus approaches and public participation in the initial exploratory stages of plan making. Chapter Five, then, looked at some practical ‘experiments’ of using consensus planning to cope with such drawbacks as lengthy decision-making procedures and a lack of local and regional support. Elaborating on these insights, this chapter aims at understanding the variety of choices regarding the application of consensus planning. In doing so, it will evaluate some opinions and realities of different Dutch planning problems while searching for an answer on the question for what type of problem what kind of consensus-planning strategy might be most useful.
