Engagement in Nottingham

VISION: Nottingham City Council has embraced Placemaking as the ethos for design and planning processes in the city, the Co-PLACE ethos created to deliver this Design Quality Framework shows the City’s aspirations on engagement. An inclusive city is only achievable if all voices and experiences are heard. The planning system offer a great opportunity to deliver social targets through Placemaking and to help individuals and communities to grow, thrive and develop along the process. Nottingham City believes that community engagement should begin as soon as there is an intention to submit a proposal for pre-application or planning permission, and must continue through the design process, setting up frameworks that allow communities to build upon the learnings of the process. Engagement should create a culture of collaboration and trust, where all parties understand their limitations from the outset so that they can contribute according to their capacities and in relation to their roles.

Community Engagement Brief:

A Community Engagement Brief is a short (often draft) document that illustrates a plan, programme, part or component of a community engagement strategy. A scheme might have several briefs a various stages and these might change along the process.

Plans and programmes are important to inform officers, stakeholders and the public about how the engagement strategy will take place, where to find relevant information and when this will be available. Applicants might choose to set up a dedicated online platform to upload this information, so that all parties have access to the same information at the same time.

It is important to document the engagement process because this data should be incorporated into the agent’s Design and Access and/or Community Engagement Statement. But more crucially because the data should be fed back to participants who dedicated time and effort during the engagement process. The population has the right to understand how they have had an input in shaping their city.

Community Engagement Statement:

A Community Engagement Statement is an official document that forms a component part of a planning submission. There are various statutory requirements regarding consultation in planning.

Good communication practice:

Communication with the community must be sustained beyond processes or until the Community Engagement Statement is available to the public through the planning portal, so that people can access data and information representing the results of the engagement process and understand how these informed the scheme.

Engagement outcomes and scheme changes must be regularly published through appropriate media, ensuring they reach both participants and those who could not attend. Every form of communication must include clear instructions of how to get in touch and when an answer would be given.

The purpose of community engagement is not only to inform the design of new schemes. Post occupancy consultations can offer valuable feedback about how engagement events and building sites were managed, how the scheme performs and how it fits in in its context.

 

Good engagement practice:

  • Apply adequate strategies to reach out to residents, communities and stakeholders

  • Use appropriate, jargon free language

  • Give clear and consistent messages

  • Avoid over-promising and under-delivering

  • Be clear about existing constraints and feasibility issues

  • Be honest about the scope and boundaries of participants’ input

  • Enable one single point of contact to channel any queries

  • Follow up with information, data and updates during the whole engagement process

  • Inform the public about the next steps

  • Be honest and clear regarding political, economic and technical constraints and explain if/how these can be overcome from the outset

  • Be honest and clear regarding your aims and motivations

  • Listen carefully and make good, accurate notes

  • Be prepared to challenge your ideas and opinions


 
 

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Engagement Checklist (coming soon)

Social Sustainability

It refers to how the formal and informal processes, systems, structures and relationships actively support the capacity of places to deliver healthy and liveable communities. Socially sustainable communities are diverse, equitable, and democratic, and provide a good quality of life with strong networks. Social sustainability happens when successful places promote wellbeing by understanding what people need from them. It happens when the combination of the physical and social environment support social and cultural life, social amenities, citizen engagement and space for people learn and grow.

These are some tools to achieving social sustainability through Placemaking:

Economy & growth:

  • Creating local jobs, regenerating an area to promote activity and investment

  • Creating apprenticeships for local people

  • Working with education institutions to inspire younger generations Including commercial and/or retail elements within the development

  • Supporting small businesses and start-ups to become established and grow

Equality:

  • Promoting and encourage continuous participation and engagement in relation to the scheme

  • Considering how the scheme or its components could deliver areas where communities could work together in the long term (e.g. community gardens/art)

  • Engaging with the community and stakeholders to make simple key decisions regarding the scheme (e.g. naming a square or a street)

  • Considering temporary uses within the scheme

Networks:

  • Organising engagement events where different stakeholders and groups work together

  • Creating new communities where necessary by organising events in relation to the scheme

  • Helping local people to become engaged by creating shared platforms and networks

  • Supporting new residents to become part of the existing community by creating/joining local events

Jargon examples

Technically led language can be inappropriate to communicate with the public. Note how GPs are good at explaining complex medical issues to patients in plain language; designers have not mastered the art yet. Technical language often does not address people’s real concerns, which are more likely to relate to their own quality of life than the particularities of the scheme. People tend to express their concerns in relation to how development might affect their daily routines, and they are less worried about the lawfulness of the proposal, as they know the planning system will deal with this. When engaging with communities, designers should use language free of jargons to address people’s concerns.