Who should speak first?

Text: an original contemporary public-meeting-speech-style practice extract.

At a consultation last winter, Asha Patel was given ninety seconds after forty minutes of presentations. The meeting was about moving a pedestrian crossing. The plans measured the extra distance in metres; Asha described that distance with a walking frame, a shopping bag and rainwater gathering at the kerb. Until she spoke, we had been discussing traffic. Afterwards, we were discussing whether someone could get home.

Our meetings routinely place residents last. By then, official vocabulary has fenced in the debate: journey times, capacity, cost. The parent steering a pushchair, the shop worker returning after dark and the teenager crossing for the morning bus are invited to comment on somebody else's question. Why not let the people who will live with a proposal help to define what the meeting examines? Specialists would still bring measurements and professional knowledge, but they would be responding to consequences already made visible.

Speaking first would not make every resident correct. It would make their experience part of the discussion before attention is tired and positions have hardened. So, at the next consultation, begin with the street rather than the screen. Let those who carry the consequences into their daily lives name what is at stake. The order of a meeting may look like a small matter, but it decides which voices everyone else must answer.

In this extract, the writer tries to persuade an audience that residents directly affected by a proposal should speak before formal presentations at public meetings.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.