What We Do
Consultations
Planning applications can be contentious – even when proposals are in line with policy. Net Zero and regeneration aspirations mean
re-thinking development: discouraging car use, a move to active travel, increased density, encouraging residential uses in city and town centres – these all have impacts. The ability to balance disbenefits to a few against wider societal needs can be challenging in a world where social media can misrepresent majority
community sentiment.
Our approach is to ensure that the right balance of consultation, communications and political engagement is adopted for each project and that the complex world of development is simplified
and clearly articulated.
How you engage and communicate with communities and other stakeholders can therefore be central to the success or failure of your project. We work with you and your design team from the earliest stages to help identify and map the stakeholders and establish the most appropriate level of engagement and the tools and approach required to deliver positive outcomes.
From online information events to co-creation workshops, streets-UK has the experience, creativity and project management skills to create and implement the most appropriate stakeholder and communications approach for every project. Where additional specialist input is required, such as public affairs or children and young people participation, we have a trusted range of associate practitioners to call upon.
The early design consultation phase is also the most appropriate time to consider the social impact of the project. Understanding how communities and other stakeholders will be impacted by a project, both positively and negatively can both help to remove or mitigate risks and to deliver meaningful social value. This helps develop support for the project and establish ‘social licence to operate’.
Virtual consultations
Streets-UK had been delivering online approaches to facilitate engagement with geographically dispersed consultees long before Covid 19 lockdowns, but the requirement during that period to exclusively engage virtually pushed us to improve and simplify our processes.
We were able to deliver targeted consultation events ranging from live, facilitated workshops to interactive project websites. We quickly realised that online events, as well as being efficient in terms of both time and cost, provide a means of undertaking an effective and compliant consultation for a planning or infrastructure project, also enable increased participation, targeting those who are less inclined to attend traditional exhibitions.
Each consultation is different and we will often organise a blend of live and virtual engagement activities for a project, seeking to maximise the reach and participation and developing a constructive and ongoing dialogue process with all stakeholders throughout the planning process.
A range of our recent virtual consultation websites can be seen in the ‘Virtual Consultations’ section. Please contact us if you would like to discuss our solutions for live or blended engagement activities.
Covid 19 necessitated that consultations around planning, often statutory, had to go online, but the experience for the attendees has often clunky and non-interactive. Streets-UK’s CGI virtual meeting room allows clients to display image galleries, written information, video and downloadable files in a remote digital space branded to the client’s specification. It can also accommodate interfaces with webinar software such as Livestorm or Zoho Meeting as well as Q&A and polling platforms such as Slido to allow us to gather real-time analytics and actionable insights from webinars. This user-friendly engagement can be accessed easily on laptops, tablets and smartphones on demand, at a time that suits the end user. Our virtual consultation room offers an alternative to traditional face to face consultations or project presentations that is sustainable with no one-off physical materials or travel. It is also inclusive and interactive, linking visitors to live chat or other contact methods, and provides improved feedback and opinion gathering as well as useful data and analytics such as visit durations and content viewed.
Social Value
Social value is a rapidly developing sector, evolving out of contractual community benefit requirements into a ‘catch-all’ term for everything from Corporate Responsibility to sustainability and ESG. It can therefore be difficult to define what you want to do, why you want to do it and where it sits within your wider objectives.
At heart, social value is ‘the additional, wider benefits that can be created by organisations and projects, for individuals, communities and local businesses.’ Institute of Civil Engineers
It invariably links back to the UN Sustainable Development Goals which incorporate social, economic and environmental objectives but will also have a ‘local’ context. How can you eliminate or mitigate the potential negative impacts of your project or your services on those most affected and how can you maximise the positive impacts?
At streets-UK, we work with you help define the correct questions and identify the pathways to finding the best answers. This will often include engaging with the right audiences, collaborating with the
most suitable partners and identifying the best method to record and measure the social value you or your project generates.
We can help you develop your procurement requirements, build a strong social value bid, create a social value strategy and action plan for your organisation, establish collaborations with educational, 3rd sector and community organisations, engage your wider stakeholders and identify and embed a social value measurement tool. We can also help you deliver!
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