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About Planning for Real®?
Planning for Real® is a unique community planning model which helps people shape the places where they live. Planning for Real® is part of the Accord Group, delivered nationally from the Neighbourhood Resource Centre for Central England, based in Walsall, West Midlands.
Working with local authorities, housing associations, voluntary agencies and community groups, we offer an independent, quality service to improve the well-being of communities.
We can help develop community engagement programmes to suit your needs.
Giving local people a voice – a modern and practical approach to community engagement
Community engagement is not just about consultation and the provision of information, important as these are. It should also be a means by which local people can be fully involved in the process of change, interacting equally with other stakeholders and wielding real power. Anything less is unlikely to result in the development of sustainable communities or effective neighbourhood planning.
For over 30 years, Planning for Real® has helped residents throughout the UK to play an active part in the regeneration of their neighbourhoods and the development of their communities.
Through the use of interactive, hands on tools and techniques, Planning for Real® enables people to individually and collectively learn new skills and develop their own assets and strengths. It genuinely helps people to make a real difference.
Getting the community involved
With the use of a large scale model of an area, Planning for Real® enables effective community involvement in consultation by:
- Allowing people to have their say without needing to speak to an audience
- Encouraging informal discussion of ideas
- Removing the confrontation which often exists at a conventional public meeting
- Making the consultation process more fun and rewarding for everyone involved
- Stimulating informal contacts between the community and officials throughout the process.
Planning for Real® uses all forms of consultation, including leafleting, public meetings, informal groups, displays, and media publicity. All of it is designed to involve people in planning their community.
The changing face of development, regeneration and planning means that Planning for Real® is now more relevant than ever before. Localism and neighbourhood planning have emerged as key drivers and Planning for Real® is ideally placed to deliver against these agendas.
To download our profile in PDF format, please use this link.
