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It's important to make a distinction between raising general awareness and systematically building opposition. You need to do both. Each will help the other, but unless your support is obviously overwhelming, only the latter will prove decisive. You can't win over a minister with "We have lots of support" or "Many people oppose this project"; you need to prove it. It's no use complaining that "Most people don't know the true facts" or "If people only knew what it'll be like"; you must tell them and show them. You must win people over to your way of thinking. And you need to be able to demonstrate that's what you've done. How much more powerful you are when you can say: "20,000 people have sent letters to the minister about this"; it puts you firmly in a position where you can talk business with MPs and prospective parliamentary candidates -- it's quite obvious to them straightaway what they stand to gain or lose. In fact, it might help to view the whole thing as a kind of election campaign, with "the project goes ahead" as one candidate, and "the project gets axed" as another. And don't forget that the Department of Transport keeps a running tally of the objections it receives to road schemes; it seems all schemes are assumed to be "locally popular" unless proved otherwise.
Plenty of things you could do.....
You might collect signatures with a petition, with pre-printed postcards, pre-written letters for people to sign, or by asking people to write their own letters. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that letters count more than cards (unless people add significant comments of the preprinted message, which counts as a letter), and cards more than petitions.
What are the relative merits of petitions, cards, and letters? Obviously, petition signatures are very easy to collect, but given that people will apparently sign anything on a high-street just to get away from you, do petitions carry any weight at all? Probably, but only if you collect many names. On the other hand, people are often reluctant to write letters -- maybe they think it takes more time than it does, or maybe they don't feel they have enough information. Maybe they've never written to an MP or minister before. Pre-printed postcards combine the advantages of both: they're easy to fill-in, easy to collect, and you can leave room for peoples' own comments. You can get people to fill them in on the spot (in the street or on a doorstep). And it's obvious where to send them.
The best way to do postcards is by chatting to people about the issues, then getting them to fill in cards on the spot. Try to persuade people to do this, rather than letting them take cards with them, or simply leaving cards with them. Say "We'll save you the stamp by posting a lot off together", or something like that. You'll get a much higher return this way. Obviously, you won't persuade everyone on the spot, so let them keep the cards if there's no alternative.... but do stress the urgency.
The Newbury postcards were phrased something like this "Dear Dr Mawhinney, I have lived in Newbury for ___ years. I object to the proposed western bypass because a) It would not solve Newbury's traffic problems; b) It would destroy the landscape to the west of the town; c) It would lead to massive in-fill development. I request that you reopen the public inquiry. [Space for comments] Yours...."
The objective is to collect 10,000+ signatures, but this will depend on what your opponents do. In Newbury, we collected 12,000+ petitions, cards, and letters by early 1995. This prompted the local pro-bypass campaign to sweep the streets with a petition that brought in around 18,000 signatures in favour of the road. So there are dangers in playing the numbers game too: like an arm-wrestle, you need to push far enough to win. There are prizes for coming second, but not the ones you want.
Send peititions all together, but send letters and cards in dribs and drabs. Make sure the ministers and MPs are getting a steady flow of opposition -- it'll worry them. Send a covering letter: "I am enclosing 80 letters (cards with comments)...." Newbury MP David Rendel reportedly started his pro-bypass campaign after noting that his postbag was 8:1 against the road (during our early campaign). It's vital to note down names and addresses before you send things off, because these people are vauable supporters, and you'll need them later. It's worth setting up a proper database at this point. If you're collecting signatures, it's well worth "grading" the support people show, or at least noting down very enthusiastic supporters -- this will be enormously valuable later, particularly if the campaign turns to direct action, when a backbone of local support will be essential. It will also be useful for allied campaigns (e.g. the Green Party at elections).
What are the pros and cons of doorstepping? It's a terrible job, it's incredibly hard work, and on occasions, when a grossly fat man comes to his door in his underpants clutching a half-eaten hamburger in one hand and restraining a pit-bull terrier with the other, it will leave you despairing of humanity. But seriously, nothing can beat it for systematically raising local support. You're not just collecting names or building numbers, you're actually talking to ordinary people and informing them, finding people who will later become dedicated supporters or valuable donors, blowing away your own preconceptions about what people actually think or where the balance of support lies. It's far easier than it sounds, though it's physically tiring. 99% of people will be extremely polite to you, if you respect the fact that you're intruding into their homes and leave as soon as they want you to. It helps to dress smartly, but don't look like you're selling double glazing.
I believe the process of meeting and talking to people is much more important than simply notching up your numbers, which is all you really do with petitions. Doorstepping can be hard work, so an alternative is to stand on the street with a photo-board, a clipboard, and some leaflets. We used to have three or four people standing in a prominent thoroughfare each Saturday, and we collected probably a third of our signatures this way. The main disadvantage of this approach is that it's less systematic: you'll speak to some people several times over as the weeks go by; you'll never speak to other people at all. That may not matter if you vary your position, appear on different days, pop up at fairs, and talk to groups -- the important thing is to reach as many different people as possible. The other advantage about a doorstep campaign is that you don't have to do it all in one go; provided you keep records, you can work through different areas at your own pace.
What you say to people is up to you -- you'll quickly find a patter that works. Don't be vague, though; don't say "There are all sorts of things we can do" without being specific. Have a few good examples to hand. It also helps to have persuasive examples of our crazy transport policy (see T2000's excellent 'Myths and Facts' leaflet). A good way to explain the package approach without sounding wishy-washy is to talk about breaking the problem into components and finding the most appropriate solution for each component. It's useful to have a map with you so you can point out the problem, your solution, and the proposed road (the alternative). Have photocopies of emotive newspaper articles to hand out.
You're trying to show that you speak for the majority of the local community; your opponents will try to write you off as "eco-fascists" or "woolly environmentalists", "people who put animals before asthmatic children", or worse. Before you know where you are, the whole debate can become completely polarised, with half the letters to the paper advocating pro-road Nazi style marches (it happened), and the other half pushing an overly zealous policy of car restriction. Meanwhile, the vast majority of people in the middle ground are turned off completely. Influential locals, respected councillors, local businesses and so on can help you build a consensus in the middle ground.
This is a variation on the theme of avoiding polarisation. Unless you deliberately want to represent, say, FoE or the Green Party as you raise local support, you can usually afford to play down the "green" aspects of what you're about. You don't need to be an environmentalist, you can just be an ordinary local campaigning for the good of your community. Green ideas may initially be a turn-off to people... but once they're on-board, they may be much more receptive to a broader environmetal point of view than if you'd tried to hook them that way to start with. (Says he as a committed environmentalist!)
Inevitably, a lot of people will want to join your campaign from outside the area. Your opponents may try to polarize the debate as "locals versus outsiders". This shouldn't be a problem: most of your campaigners will live locally. Have a soundbite ready in case this comes up in a radio/TV interview: "I've lived here for 35 years" / "My great grandfather was the vicar of Wilton", or whatever. At some point, you may need to tackle the "outsiders" problem head on. There are plenty of arguments you can use: knock-on effects on the people of nearby towns (i.e. regional effects/corridor arguments); the road is being paid for by every taxpayer in the country; these people have seen just how bad the destruction is at Twyford/wherever; people care enough about this town to come here to save it... etc etc.
By the time direct-action started in Newbury, we were receiving 10+ letters a week from schoolchildren doing geography projects on the road and related issues. Most of these looked impressively well-informed. As a result, we produced a very balanced project sheet for teachers and pupils, listing all the good information sources we could think of, useful addresses, and a long list of questions for people to consider. We made the whole thing completely balanced (recommending that pupils write to the DoT and the pro-road groups for their version of events) and included questions like: "Why do you think traffic has increased so much in recent years? What are the problems that causes? What is the traffic problem in the town? Is there just one? How would you solve each problem? Are people ever justified in breaking the law to protest against something they don't agree with? If you could start from scratch and re-plan the centre of town, how would you do it? We never pushed our own viewpoint on these questions.
In retrospect, we probably should have tried to get schools working on projects like these before the direct action phase. Parents often help or discuss projects like this with their children, so it's a good way to get quite a lot of people thinking about the issues.
In Newbury, the doorstep campaign reversed many of our preconceptions about where our support/opposition was coming from. Older people (especially pensioners) seemed far mroe clued up than younger ones; they could remember decent bus and train services. Young mothers frequently supported the road -- ironic victims of the traffic increase/asthmatic children messages. Middle-aged women were much more receptive than their husbands, but would often say "I'll have to ask my husband before I sign anything". Doorstep debates between husbands and wives were common; but women are worse-served by our transport system than men, and it can be important to single them out on the high street, or call at their homes when their petrol-headed husbands are out!
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