Community engagement: reflections on the National Planning Summit

The National Planning Summit is an opportunity for UK planners to meet and discuss issues relating to the profession. Despite a gloomy view of the sector, our Director, Matthew Morgan, managed to find good news in communities engaging in the planning process.   

The English planning system is broken; undervalued, underfunded and under the kosh of contradictory government policy. At least that seemed to be the consensus at the National Planning Summit, held in the first week of May in London. 

Seeking the bright spots

So it felt like an opportune moment to point out some bright spots from the world of community engagement with a panel discussion on ‘involving communities in the planning process’. 

I was joined by Dr Ruchit Purohit, with whom we have been working for the past two years on Community Consultation for Quality of Life (CCQOL) – a UK-wide, UKRI-funded project to investigate engagement and to develop best practice guidelines – as well as Miranda McLaren, Director and Housing Sector Lead at Morris + Company, and Richard Eastham, Founding Director Feria Urbanism. The inimitable Steve Quartermain chaired.

The CCQOL project, for which we set up urban rooms in Reading, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast, asked participants to map their quality of life digitally against the six themes of the quality of life framework. 

The project has shown us the desire for people to be consulted on changes affecting their area, and the fallacy of groups being ‘hard-to-reach’ (i.e. not ‘hard-to-reach’, just ‘easy to ignore’). It has also shown us how, despite public apathy and chronic under-resourcing, there is innovative and participatory engagement taking place up and down the country. 

There is good news

And the good news is that engagement can be inclusive, with the ability to raise the voices of those individuals or groups who are not normally heard.

And urban rooms – community spaces that explore the past, present and future of a place – have the potential to bring people together to talk about their area, with exhibitions, talks and activities led by the community.

Engagement – fun, empowering and opening planning up for all

Engagement can be empowering, with the example given by Richard of a group of villagers who had attended a workshop where they learned the rudiments of planning so they were better able to feed into the local neighbourhood plan. 

And engagement can be fun, with the potential for games to become part of community conversations, such as a planning version of snakes and ladders used in Belfast that shows the highs and lows of the planning process or school workshops carried out by Richard that had resulted in the participation of children, parents and the community in turn.

 “Planning should be open for all,” said Miranda. 

And community engagement provides the means to do that. 

The sun is shining, at least for a little while, so let’s get out there, engage people in conversations, and make planning something for everyone.

Who knows what good things might result?