We are regularly commissioned by local authorities to design and run programmes of community engagement. Over the years these have included neighbourhood projects, parks and open spaces, community safety, health and wellbeing, community buildings and consultations on service provision.

Our techniques are flexible, meaning that we can tailor and design a programme of community engagement to suit your specific requirements. Over recent years projects we have worked on include:

• Wolverhampton City Council’s Active Neighbourhoods Project: the aim of the Project has been to work with representatives of local groups and organisations to involve residents of all ages living within the Heath Town Ward to gather their views and ideas about how they can be supported and encouraged to be more active and what barriers they may face in trying to achieve this.  These views and ideas would then be used, through a co-design process, to help identify how the area, using assets on the “doorstep”, could become an active neighbourhood with the focus on increasing physical activity and improving the wider determinants of health.
• Carmarthenshire County Council – Tyisha Ward: we worked with the Tyisha Steering Group, as part of an anti-poverty and regeneration initiative, to engage with, hear the views of, and involve the community of the Tyisha Ward in developing regeneration plans and strategies that would improve the physical environment of the area (the place) and address the socio-economic issues some members of the community were facing (the people).
• Cotswold District Council – Local Plan Update – Moreton-in-Marsh Community Event: the practical, hands-on event was hosted by Cotswold District Council and facilitated by Planning for Real and followed on from the Council’s formal consultation on the Cotswold District Local Plan Update held earlier in 2024. The focus of the event was to gain a better understanding of the local community’s view of the issues and opportunities affecting Moreton today, to explore how the community see Moreton in the future and how needs can be met in the coming years, and to input into the Terms of Reference and membership of the Moreton-in-Marsh Working Group which will represent the views of residents, businesses, and local organisations to the Council on the Local Plan Update.

We have also worked with parish and town councils to develop community-led engagement programmes for specific local issues. A recent example:

• Pershore Town Council: working with the Pershore Town Plan Working Group made up of resident volunteers and Town Councillors, to engage the wider community to gather their suggestions and identify their concerns for the future of Pershore that would help shape the development of the Town Plan.