Community consultation
Engaging with the local community as an integral part of the design and the development process is critical to ensuring that a scheme is a success. It allows us to respond to local needs and create a new development that will be embraced locally.
We work with existing community organisations and local agencies to help them play an active and informed role in the process. On all large-scale schemes we use a range of techniques to encourage participation, including roadshows, newsletters and sounding boards with key resident groups.
Our methodology
Our methodology follows best practice guidelines and includes the consideration and adoption where appropriate of the following steps:
Conduct a stakeholder mapping analysis exercise
Identify all individuals and groups who will have an impact on the scheme or be affected by it.
Produce a Statement of Intent
Develop a strategy to run a programme of varied events to reach the local community, with specific focus on hard to reach groups.
Produce a Statement of Participation
A document which records how stakeholders have been involved in the process and how opinions have been considered and incorporated into the process.
Form a Community Steering Group
To act as the decision-making board for the development. To include Crest Nicholson and other key stakeholders including public sector landowners and local authority representation.
Form a Community Forum
To include a wider range of local community interest groups. Comments and observations are reported to the Steering Group and incorporated where appropriate.
Ongoing Wider Community Consultation
Run a programme of events to provide the opportunity for a wider audience to receive an update on proposals, raise awareness and an opportunity for the development team to receive face-to-face feedback.
Park Central, Birmingham
Park Central is a residential, commercial and leisure project being developed over a ten-year period and providing nine different residential zones and four business quarters as well as shops, restaurants and a landmark hotel.
At the start of the project residents, the local authority and the development partners worked together for nine months to establish the Park Central 'Vision'. The revised masterplan improved the way different land uses were combined and added an additional £45m (30%) to the value of the project.
Collaborative decision-making
Executive management of the development is undertaken by a project board which meets monthly to review progress, sign off key decisions, commission reports and discuss matters such as space standards, car parking and estate management. The Board comprises of tenant representatives, key staff from the City Council and Crest Nicholson Directors. It is an on-going partnership between all interested parties and provides a forum in which people can have their say.
Bath Western Riverside
Crest Nicholson has a resolution granting outline planning consent for 2,281 homes, commercial and retail floorspace, up to 675 student rooms and a school and community centre on a 43-acre site along the River Avon close to the heritage City of Bath.
Inclusive engagement
The site generated significant interest among resident and heritage groups. To design a development that would be embraced by English Heritage, CABE and other key stakeholders, Crest Nicholson began a comprehensive programme of community consultation in October 2004. One-to-one sessions, residents' meetings and panel meetings all helped inform the draft plans. We also sought feedback through two exhibitions - attended by over 1,500 visitors, distributing 5,000 leaflets and a dedicated website to view plans and submit comments.
The scheme proposals were reshaped in response to the feedback. One example is that the scale of the development height of key buildings was reduced.
Crest Nicholson has also met extensively and on a regular basis with smaller groups to encourage them to discuss the proposals and express their views to influence the shape of the scheme.
East Street, Farnham
This is a residential, commercial and leisure project that covers a largely neglected quarter of Farnham town centre, and will provide for 239 apartments, a new town square, a cinema and 25 new shops and family restaurants.
Local people were concerned that a now-closed theatre on the site was not included in the council's vision for the area, and a group of theatre supporters had generated 2,000 letters of objection on this point.
In response, Crest Nicholson held a detailed exhibition of the development proposals, including complete plans and aerial elevations, samples of materials and a demonstration of the green roofs, the walls and the drainage systems. The exhibition was manned by employees from Crest Nicholson and the architects, and people were also able to sign up for meetings with the traffic consultants.
Giving local people such extensive opportunities to talk about the development plans helped to allay their concerns. The outcome was over 75% local support and the site was approved for planning.
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