Public participation in public private partnership projects - The way forward

Delivering public facilities and services through the public private partnerships approach has become increasingly popular. Unlike those public schemes where the government is responsible for the planning tasks, the private investors should formulate innovative solutions to satisfy the requirements and expectations of the society. Therefore, meeting the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit becomes a major challenge of the private investors, especially when the scheme could last for years and the impacts to the society, if any, may be very deep-rooted. Until now, little attention has been attributed to uplift the process of public participation in public private partnership projects, and there is a need to examine what should be done to ensure the interests of the community are catered for without compromising on the financial return. In this paper, the current practice of public participation in public private partnership projects is unveiled. Based on the findings of interviews conducted with relevant experts in Hong Kong, recommendations are made to rationalise the public participation process for public private partnerships. The findings of this paper would serve as a basis for the government of different countries to formulate policies to balance the interests of the private investors and the community in public private partnership projects.