Engaging the Community

Effective community engagement is key to understanding how places work and what is needed from a new development. Its value should not be underestimated as if undertaken well it will inform the design process, highlighting opportunities and constraints at an early stage, and creating a consensus for development to proceed.

To be effective engagement should start early, involve the right people, create partnerships and identify boundaries at an early stage. There should be clear understanding from the outset what the agenda for involvement is, who is involved, what roles people play and what the process will be.

There are a wide number of different ways to engage the community. Which tool is used will depend upon a range of factors such as the scale of development, the numbers of stakeholders involved, timescale, previous consultation undertaken and whether the levels of social cohesion.

Then engaging the community ensure that appropriate facilitation skills and resources are in place. This will enable all stakeholders to engage effectively.