If you’re planning a Community Spaces project – or any project that involves public spaces and will affect local people’s lives – you should be engaging people in consultation. Or in lay mans terms, you should be involving people that live near the site as well as end users in planning your project.
Consultations are about taking on board concerns, comments and ideas from local people – both young and old – and ensuring that you are listening to what they say before you start your project.
Consultations are a key requirement of Community Spaces projects. We want to fund projects that have engaged local people, which tell us what local people have said and show how the feedback has been incorporated into plans for the project.
Many groups struggle with consultation and aren’t sure how best to go about involving the wider community – other groups are ‘pros’ at this and use creative and fun ways to engage local people!
Tell us what you know about consultation
We’d like groups to share what they know about consultation with us here… Let us know how you have tackled consultation and share any useful hints & tips you have.
We’d also like to hear from those of you that might be struggling with this, what are you finding difficult? What questions would you like answered?
Our community group, Friends of Fairland Park has been working closely with the local council and Groundwork London for the last 2 years. We have worked towards re-development of our local park and happily these works will now begin February 2010.
With consultation it is important to have;
1. a committed voluntary group
2. a council community development officer or similar
3. a ‘third sector’ organisation that has experience of similar projects
All of the above as well as other organisations such as the SNT (police), councillors, schools and others have been a part of a ‘working group’ which has focused on consultation, plans and funding over the last two years.
Reaching as many local households as possible, working with local schools, many meetings, collating information from consultations and providing clear feedback of community priorities all help to feed into development plans. These plans then have a better chance of attracting necessary funding.
Having a dedicated council officer helps with providing paid time and keeping the voluntary group focused. Having the council on board can help with funding and having a ‘third sector’ group such as Groundwork is vital for utilizing their expertise and resources.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. Sounds like you guys have been really organised with this. Some really useful information there, and some great tips.
The Friends of Torkington Park raise funds to change our park from a predominantly football type park to one that will appeal to all ages and interests. Our last project was a skate / BMX area which took 5 yrs to complete. The project took longer as we had to consult the local residents at different stages of the project.
You cannot put equipment into a public space if there is no need for it, so we had to prove that the local youngsters needed this facility. We contacted all local schools and youth groups to see what facilities they wanted to see in their park. Then we asked several companies to design a facility for a fixed cost. We went back to the schools ect and asked them to vote for their favourite.
We also did a leaflet drop inviting residents to come and see the proposals and give their feedback.
It is vital that the community is happy with the plans and that restrictions are put in place to prevent anti social behaviour and vandalism etc.
We had the backing of our local council together with their liaison officer who was invaluable to the project.
[...] time ago we posted a blog piece about the importance of consultation and asked you all to share your experience and stories. We’d like to thank those of you [...]
I came across some good consultation in a Stage 1 application. The group did lots of things, including putting flyers in bags at sale event. The Youth Centre has produced a DVD to show their needs and some local schools are engaged via drawing pictures of what they would like and older children getting involved in some decorative projects in design and technology classes.
It shows how consultation, project design and community involvement can all take place at the same time.
The Thornhill Bridge Community Gardener’s, based in King’s Cross, London have been awarded a large grant from Community Spaces of £100k.
The project is still in early stages and the group is looking to get more views from local people. They have begun a consultation process via their blog – please follow this link to see what they are doing; http://www.kingscrossenvironment.com/2010/07/tbcg-further-views-needed.html