Consultation in the 21st century
What do we offer?
Forensic research
We provide an in-depth research report into the local political, cultural, and media landscape of the local area. This includes a media briefing, political breakdown from our team’s knowledge and connections, a social media report, and analysis of local sentiments and political attitude towards development.
Stakeholder Contact
We begin early contact with local politicians and community leaders such as businesses, residents associations, sports clubs, and charities. This way, you are in control of how the key decision makers learn about your proposals. During these meetings, we can identify any concerns that they may have while we still have time to address them
Our expert team of seasoned politicians have sat on both sides of the table; we know how to communicate effectively with political decision makers.
Message Setting
Our research and early conversations inform our message setting. It is crucial that the messaging we take forward on a public platform is derived from local sentiments, and isn’t the same cut-and-paste phrasing that the public will have heard from many other developers. Our messaging is designed to cut through the noise and immediately build interest and trust, as well as aiming to bring in as many supporters (who typically don’t engage) as possible.
Newsletter
The most effective way of communicating is still the traditional newsletter delivered to neighbouring homes and stakeholders.
Building on our message setting, our newsletters are colourful leaflets, custom designed with lots of images to “sell the dream” of the proposed development to the local residents, councillors, and officers to ensure that they are aware of the benefits that the potential development will deliver. This also begins to draw in those potential supporters who we can follow-up with, with the aim of maximising third-party support at Planning Committee. Each newsletter also contains a QR code directing people to the website.
Website
Having information regarding the proposed development accessible online is now the absolute foundation of credibility and trust in planning. Our in-house team designs and deploys the website from scratch, conveying all of the relevant information and community benefits in a visual, easily digestible format that stylistically remains in-line with the vision for the development.
Our websites also have feedback page for members of the public and councillors to submit their views. This aida us in identifying supporters of the scheme and creating a database of contact details for potential advocates for when we come to the Planning Committee phase, enabling us to harness support in a meaningful way.
Virtual Exhibition
Informed by our research, message setting and early contact, our Virtual Exhibitions (VEs) comprise of a short video, narrated by a professional voice actor, walking viewers through the proposals in around five minutes. On more ambitious schemes, we can also turn technical plans into 3D CGIs to integrate the proposed development with our drone footage to really bring the scheme to life.
The key benefit of a VE over a traditional exhibition is that anyone can access it, at any time. Our analysis shows very clearly that the type of people most likely to support new housing are the type of people that are too busy to attend a traditional exhibition, and will be much more likely to engage if they can do so at their own convenience.
This approach has been tried and tested and has proved immensely successful, seeing participation levels up to 700% higher than traditional methods. We have consistently observed that wherever this method has been used, the levels of objection to proposals has been either non-existing or insignificantly low.
Targeted social media advertising
The most effective way to bring in a younger (and often more pragmatic) age demographic is by leveraging the power of social media advertising. Advertising audiences can be fine-tuned based on online behaviour and highly targeted to ensure that precise demographics are brought onto the website.
We use different social media platforms for different purposes:
- Instagram and TikTok
In the past, this has helped us attract 70,000 visitors from the local area for a project in London, and typically sees engagement around 5,000 – 10,000 outside of major cities.
Statement of Community Involvement
The CCP will collate all feedback received through the consultation above and compile a report for submission alongside the application. This will also outline the significant consultation process that has been undertaken with the local community and its representatives throughout the project in order to demonstrate that best practice has been undertaken, above and beyond the requirements of the NPPF and Localism Act
But every project is bespoke.
Find out what we can offer to your project by getting in touch.