ConsultOnline blog
Ideas for better planning consultation
Insights on public consultation, community engagement and planning communications.
Stakeholder analysis: getting it right
Researching likely consultees at the start of the consultation process ensures that the consultation strategy takes into account the appropriate number of residents to be targeted, the diversity within the community and an understanding of where power lies. Without it, the consultation runs the risk of being asymmetrical and failing to reach certain sections of ...
Good consultation is good PR – despite what the consultation experts say!
An organisation specialising in consultation, which will remain nameless (you know who you are!) continually refers – despite my protestations to the contrary – to PR as ‘spin’. In its eyes, consultation which doesn’t deliver good two way dialogue is ‘PR’. As a PR consultant specialising in consultation, this has always irritated me because PR ...
Penny Norton speaks at the TCPA seminar Getting Public Participation Right.
Penny Norton speaks at the TCPA’s seminar on Getting Public Participation Right following her contribution to the TCPA Practical Guides – Guide 11: People, planning and power which was launched at the event.
Planning reform – but at what cost?
Today is the deadline for responses to the Government’s consultation on its policy paper Planning reform: supporting the high street and increasing the delivery of new homes, which proposes to increase the Permitted Development Rights allowing change of use and in doing so removes public consultation from decisions affecting the regeneration of town centres. I ...
Planning reform – for the worse
Today is the deadline for responses to the Government’s consultation on its policy paper Planning reform: supporting the high street and increasing the delivery of new homes, which proposes to increase the Permitted Development Rights allowing change of use and in doing so removes public consultation from decisions affecting the regeneration of town centres. I ...
The Raynsford Review and the potential for greater community involvement in planning published in Town and Country Planning
At the end of November, the TCPA published Planning 2020: the final report of the Raynsford Review of Planning in England. The report includes some excellent recommendations but will they change policy on consultation in planning? The final report is an incredibly comprehensive and significant assessment of the English planning system by former housing minister ...
The Raynsford Review and the Potential for Greater Community Involvement in Planning – Town and Country Planning
I am frequently asked whether consultation is a legal requirement in planning. The fact that it is impossible to answer in fewer than 100 words exemplifies just how complex community involvement in planning has become. And so I, and other Associates of the Consultation Institute, very much welcome the Interim Report of the Raynsford Review ...
Quality at a price that doesn’t match
ConsultOnline clients benefit from the strategic advice of an Associate of The Consultation Institute (skilled and experienced in all aspects of consultation, up to date with case law, guidance and new methodologies) and the tactics of the author of the definitive guide to consultation in planning (Public Consultation and Community Involvement in Planning: a twenty-first ...
The Revised NPPF: a missed opportunity
In May, the Government (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government) held a consultation on revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework – the headline planning policy document from which all other planning policy stems. I contributed to the consultation through The Consultation Institute’s response, which commented specifically on the very opaque legislation / guidance ...
The Raynsford Review: an opportunity for greater community involvement in planning
The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) is undertaking a considerable review of the English planning system, intended to make it fairer, better resourced and capable of producing quality outcomes. A key tenent of this is improved community involvement in the planning system. The task force, which is chaired by former planning minister Nick Raynsford, ...
Professionalising consultation in planning
The law surrounding statutory consultation is extensive. And yet when developers consult on planning applications, there is a stark absence of official guidance, regulation and case law. Why, in a discipline led by professionals – chartered surveyors, planning consultants and lawyers – is the approach to consultation so lacking in professional rigour? Because in most ...
Changing communication in planning published in RICS Land Journal
While the property world is being transformed by PropTech, a comparison between most developer-led consultations with those of the late twentieth century would suggest that little has changed: today’s consultations appear to rely on newsletters, exhibitions and paper surveys, just as they did then. And yet innovative and effective communications tools exist, and have the ...