Community Engagement

How today will work • Policy context

• Localism- have the rules changed?

• What does it all mean?

• Community engagement – why bother?

• Consultation vs engagement

• Best practice

• Community engagement – how?

• Discussion

Athene

Support for development

Framing the terms of consultation

Managing concerns

Changing perceptions

Decentralisation and Localism “We will be the first government in a generation to leave

office with much less power in Whitehall than we started with.”

“No more top-down bureaucratic-driven public services. The old targets and performance indicators…they’re gone.”

“The job of government is not to run people’s lives. It’s to help people run their own.”

Policy context

Policy context – planning gridlock?

“Presumption in favour”

“Power in the hands of local people”

NPPF

• Local green space designation

• CIL – meaningful proportion of funds placed with neighbourhoods

• Local plans

• Early engagement

Localism Act

1. New freedom & flexibility for local government

2. New rights and powers for local communities

3. Reform to make planning more democratic and effective

4. Reform to ensure decisions about housing are taken locally.

Localism Act

• New freedom & flexibility for local government

Localism Act

• New responsibilities

Localism Act

• Pre-determination

Localism Act

• Abolition of ‘undemocratic’ IPC

• National Infrastructure Planning

Localism Act – community rights

• Community right to challenge

Localism Act – community rights

• Community right to bid (assets of community value)

Localism Act – community rights

• Neighbourhood planning tools

• Neighbourhood plan

• Neighbourhood development order (community right to build)

Neighbourhood planning

Defining the

neighbourhood

Preparing the plan

Independent check

Referendum

Legal force

Implementation

Neighbourhood planning - considerations

• Additional burden on local authorities

• Cost

• Skills

• Confusion / apathy

• Timing

• General conformity with local plans

• More development and shaping development – not less

Resourcing n’hood planning

• Local planning authority - obligation

• Developers, councils, landowners,

businesses

• £50m until March 2015 to support local

councils

• £3M has been provided to four support

organisations

Localism Act – consultation

• Compulsory pre-application consultation

• Publicise

• Contact details and timescales

• Have regard to the responses

• Demonstrate compliance in the planning application

Timings

Localism Act

receives Royal

Assent

15 Nov 2011 27 June 2012

Community

right to

challenge regs

come into

force

June/July 2012

Community

right to

bid regs

come into

force

27 March 2012

NPPF published

April 2012

Localism Act

secondary

legislation

What does this mean?

• Gridlock??

• Localism = law / NPPF = guidance

• Slow and steady changes

• Long term - better equipped and informed communities

• More and better research to understand communities

• More & better consultation/engagement

Neighbourhood response - front runners

• 233 front-runners

• LA of each neighbourhood has been granted £20K per project

Dawlish, south Devon

• First neighbourhood plan goes to examination – April 2012

• Consultation draft neighbourhood plan

• 400 consultation responses

• In-line with Core Strategy

King’s Cross Development Forum

• Formed due to concerns over potential development

• Residents, businesses, amenity bodies

Castlethorpe parish council, MK

• Already has a village plan

• New Parish Plan to be prepared at the same time as Neighbourhood Plan

• Steering group

• Aim – determine when development takes place

Local response • Already doing

• Tentatively positive

• Doesn’t replace Community Led Plans/Parish Visions

• Wait and see

• Hard to define ‘neighbourhood’

• Apathy with existing neighbourhood planning structures

• Depends on local expertise available

• Easier to galvanise action against something

Community engagement – why bother?

Because you have to

• Localism Act

• “Planning applications that are in line with local and neighbourhood plans should normally be approved”.

• Local authority SCIs

Community engagement – why bother?

Because there are benefits

• Less confrontational planning process

• Mobilise silent support

• Build relationships for the future

• Support your brand

• Improved and sustainable development

You can notify people about your plans This is what I am going to do.

You can inform people about your plans

This is what I am going to do, why, when and how I am going to do and, if I knew, I might even tell you how it affects you

You can consult people about your plans

Here are my plans, what do you think? You can engage people about your plans

I have some ideas about a proposed development. Can we talk about what this means for you?

Consultation vs Engagement

Notify Tell a neighbour Planning notice Advert

Inform Press articles Static Website Plans and drawings

Consult Exhibitions Consultation documents Interactive website

Engage Pre-application 1-1s Public meetings Workshops

Consultation vs Engagement

Consultation vs Engagement

Consultation – the safe option?

• Maintains control of the process • Provides less opportunity for confrontation • Could be cheaper and less time consuming

Engagement – the safer option?

• Takes the sting out of community opposition • More likely to comply with a world of ‘localism’ • Enhances the sustainability of the application • Differentiates the developer?

Best practice

1. Make it a core activity and start early

2. Be informed and check with the people that know

3. Have a strategy for engagement with clear objectives

4. Establish clear ground rules and timescales

5. Use the right mix of channels

6. Make it accessible

7. Have a process for feedback that is transparent

8. Capture and record

9. Analyse and consider

10. Feedback to the community

IPC compliance Pre application consultation should ensure that people: • Have access to information • Can put forward their own ideas and feel confident that there

is a process for considering ideas • Have an active role in developing proposals and options to

ensure local knowledge and perspectives are taken into account

• Can comment on and influence formal proposals • Get feedback and be informed about progress and outcomes

IPC compliance Developers have to:

• Know their communities • Take a broad view in defining local communities, reaching out

to those who work and visit an area, not just those who live there.

• Consider a phased consultation consisting of two or more stages.

• Consult on, develop and publish a Statement of Community Consultation.

• Allow at least 28 days for responses to consultation

Community engagement – how?

• Rule 1: Understand your project. What is your communication strategy? Where is your room to move?

• Rule 2: Define and then understand your community – they are even more important that bats and newts!

• Rule 3: Segment your audiences. Who do you need to meet? Who do you need to write to and invite to your events? Who do you need to ‘be aware’?

• Rule 4: Communicate early/often and in every way you can – the perils of modern media!

Understand your

objectives

Community Audit

Match and gap analysis

Community Dialogue Strategy

Community engagement – how?

Understand your

objectives

Community Audit

Match and gap analysis

Community Dialogue Strategy

Community engagement – how?

Understand your

objectives

Community Audit

Match and gap analysis

Community Dialogue Strategy

Community engagement – how?

Understand your

objectives

Community Audit

Match and gap analysis

Community Dialogue Strategy

Community engagement – how?

Community engagement – who?

• Everyone who’s interested • Those who aren’t interested • The great and the good • Technical Experts • Those that really matter in a community • Interest groups • Your supporters! • Can you engage too many people?

Community engagement – how?

• Pre-engagement meetings

• Public exhibitions

• Public meetings

• Public workshops

• Feedback

Innovations

Innovations

Innovations

Innovations

Innovations

Innovations

Questions & Discussion…

Future-proof workshops

• What does toothpaste look like in a world with only 5% of the water available today?

• What does this neighbourhood look like when 80% of residents are over 65?

Future-proof workshops

1. Level of knowledge of Localism?

2. Preparedness for Localism?

3. Support requires?

4. Budget set aside?

5. Other challenges/opps?

Is it possible to develop a productive and mutually

beneficial ‘virtuous circle’ of communities and

developers planning and working together as partners,

rather than conspiring against each other as

adversaries?