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Consultation and community engagement in neighbourhood planning

Overview of presentation

• How to successfully engage your community:

– Who to engage

– What methods to use

• At what stages do you need to consult formally?

• An example from Malmesbury NPG

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Key words

Engagement: building ongoing relationships with the purpose of finding a collective vision for the community

Consultation: formally consulting or discussing

Stakeholder: an individual group or organisation who mayStakeholder: an individual, group or organisation who may have an interest in your neighbourhood plan

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Step 2: Establish a steering group

• Ensuring good breadth of representation on steering group will help with community engagement

• Key partners and stakeholders could include:

– local councillors

– local businesses

l d– landowners

– voluntary groups

– educational establishments

Your engagement strategy

Develop communication and engagement strategy:

– Define objectives

– Who to consult

– How and when to consult

How to feed back results– How to feed back results

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Step 3: Develop your objectives and vision

• Where are you now?

• Where do you want to be?

• What are your priorities?

• How do you get there?

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Consulting in the early stages

• Questionnaires

• Suggestion boxes

• Send a text

• Seminars

• Roadshows

Neeld Hall, Chippenham

• Mad, sad, glad boards

• Maps to identify ‘hot’ or ‘grot’ spots

Calne masterplanning workshop

Consulting in the early stages (contd)

Placecheck Planning for real

C• Walk around survey with members of your community

• Community planning process based on a 3D model

© Planning for real- The Lache, Cheshire© Placecheck,- Sneiton, Nottingham

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Step 8: Your draft plan

• Ongoing community engagement

• Feed back results

• Present development options

• Examine specific issues/themes

• Use of working groups

• Manage expectations

• Avoid tokenism

(C) Sherston Neighbourhood Plan

Ongoing engagement

• Neighbourhood planning champions/ representatives

• Use of online engagement opportunities

• Market/ street stalls

• School and college projects• School and college projects

• Workshops

• Use of different/ unusual locations

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Step 9: 6 week formal consultation

• Lead qualifying body to publicise:

– Neighbourhood development plan

– Where and when the plan can be inspected

– How to make representations

– Dates by which representations must be received ( i i f 6 k )(minimum of 6 weeks)

• Plan may need alterations in light of feedback

Step 9: Publicise your plan

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Before you submit your plan (step 10)

• Review consultation responses and make any necessary changes to your plan

• Prepare a consultation statement outlining:

– Who was consulted and how

– The issues and concerns raised

H i d h b dd d– How issues and concerns have been addressed

• Document everything

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Step 11: Further 6 week formal consultation

• Wiltshire Council will consult on your plan

• Any representations made during this period will be passed to the independent examiner.

Step 12: Independent ExaminationE i ill i t ti d h• Examiner will review representations and assess how you have addressed issues and concerns

• Examiner ensures legal requirements have been met

Step 13: Referendum

• Wiltshire Council carries out referendum

• Restrictions on how town or parish council can campaign before and during referendum period

• 50% support vote needed for plan50% support vote needed for plan to be passed

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What Locality says…

‘Community engagement is necessary and important forCommunity engagement is necessary and important for several reasons. It is a requirement of planning legislation. It is essential in developing consensus and creating community support. Finding out what people think and drawing on their skills and knowledge is an important part of developing the evidence base and developing the Neighbourhood Plan, leading to more deliverable plans and

li i F il t iti l tpolicies. Failure to engage communities properly at an early stage is one of the main causes of conflict later in the process. This can lead to additional costs and delays.’

Questions