Why community voices must be at the heart of the UK's regeneration

Gary L Hider - stock.adobe.com

In an historic move, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has announced it is setting up a second ministerial base in the Midlands city of Wolverhampton. 

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick makes the bold claim this will help “spread opportunity and prosperity to every part of our nation.”  

Viewed alongside the £4bn Levelling Up fund announced last November by Chancellor Rishi Sunak (to ‘fund the infrastructure of everyday life’ such as roads, libraries, museums and galleries, and investment in town centres), this new move demonstrates how serious the government is about its Levelling Up agenda.  

It also sends a clear signal that the government wants more diversity of thought and local voices to inform policymaking. This is something we desperately need, now more than ever as we face the challenges – but also the opportunities – of rebuilding as we emerge from COVID-19. 

For many of the working population, life looks very different from just a year ago. There are those of us who no longer spend hours a day travelling to work in an office, although there are obvious drawbacks as well as clear lifestyle and environmental benefits. We may have new jobs closer to home. We certainly don't travel as far. We use cars less frequently. And we now know our villages, towns and cities much more intimately after really ‘living local’ for the past year in our 15-minute communities.  

Indeed, with the number of people moving out of London at a four year high in 2020, our largest cities must redouble their efforts to show they are attractive as thriving centres of commerce; exciting, energetic places where ideas are shared and innovations realised. This provides an opportunity to think differently about how we deliver real quality of life in cities. 

We now need the sort of courage and galvanising political will seen in the Liverpool City Region during the 1980s, when the regeneration of the Royal Albert Dock and establishment of Tate Liverpool set a new ambition for the city and its people, and created a world-beating destination.

Ambitious metropolitan schemes such as the Camden Highline will see value created for local people – both by increasing access to local green spaces, as well as attracting tourists and their spending power in the future. But smaller towns and cities will need bold approaches to regeneration too where buildings have multipurpose uses, serving divergent needs of different generations. They will blur the boundaries between work, home and leisure.

Listening to people in communities across the UK is something we at Comm Comm UK do every day in our work as public consultation experts for the built environment sector.  

We have seen that time and again the best outcomes for our property clients are based on early engagement, open conversation and transparent information. Then, importantly, doing what you say you will. These are the central tenets and values upon which my business is built.

Creating trust with people is essential before they will share their thoughts and ideas with you. In our work, securing buy-in from local people means the resulting property scheme is usually better designed, creates more benefits for its users and has an easier, and often swifter, journey through to approval. 

What is crucial though is to demonstrate you have really listened, reconsidered and adapted your plans as a result. For UCL Estates, Comm Comm UK worked to deliver a new centre of excellence for the Queen Square Institute of Neurology and UK Dementia Research Institute. We developed an exemplar consultation programme focusing on ongoing and in-depth engagement with site neighbours. Long-term relationships are built on creating a shared understanding over time. This cannot, and must not, be rushed. 

Recent research from digital engagement platform Commonplace, which commissioned Public First to conduct public opinion research including a UK-wide poll of 1,003 people and two focus groups, tells us that people do want to have a say when it comes to shaping their local areas. 76% of its polling sample thought that ‘people need to be given a greater say over new developments in their local area.’ *

But currently of those who do engage on planning matters, nearly twice as many do from a position of complaint or negativity. (Only 27% of those surveyed had taken part in a planning decision. Of those who had engaged, twice as many signed a petition to oppose a development (60%) as attended a public meeting (32%).  People also felt the planning system lacked transparency, with over  half the sample (52%) saying that planning decisions about new developments were taken ‘in secret to avoid a public backlash.’

And as we reimagine, rebuild and regenerate, we must take more seriously how we consult local people, having more and better conversations. This needs properly resourcing with time and money. The statutory requirements for public consultation need beefing up and a standardised approach would enable people to know what to expect and develop their confidence when contributing.

This needs to go hand in hand with tracking outcomes over time, by creating an industry-wide evidence base, so people can see the difference being involved has made in terms of what is built and the value that creates.

Developers must be expected to invest in consultation at an early stage of their project, rather than see it as a necessary pain point. We would like to see legislation that requires 1% of a project build to be invested in meaningful dialogue via consultation.  

The prize for tapping into local energies and harnessing local knowledge to regenerate and renew places across the UK is a big one - places we can all be proud of, that cater for local needs, are a living embodiment of People Power and also bring all-important business benefits. And hopefully, the next generation will have a different and more positive relationship with development. 

I, for one, can’t wait to get started. 

Jessica Stewart, Managing Director of Comm Comm UK

Comm Comm UK is a proud sponsor of the APPG for Regeneration and Development.

*Source: Engaging for the Future, Commonplace research from January