Don’t deliver a pre-baked cake – why engagement will deliver the homes people want
Don’t deliver a pre-baked cake – why engagement will deliver the homes people want
What’s the most common complaint you hear from people who fear their quality of life will be adversely affected by new developments in their neighbourhood? Answer: “We knew nothing at all about this – it has come as a complete shock!”
Yet creating shock and surprise is rarely, if ever, the intention of the developer. As anyone who has ever submitted a planning application will confirm, creating conflict and controversy only ever has one outcome – it delays a project, adds to the costs and in a worse case can kill the plan stone dead.
In its almost 50-page report titled New Towns: Creating Communities, the House of Lords Built Environment Committee recognises the problem of failing to keep neighbours and stakeholders informed of a plan - and suggests the solution.
In its summary of the report’s main points it stresses: “Engagement must be early, meaningful and genuinely formative.”
Early community engagement with those affected by new developments is a requirement of the planning process but it also makes perfect sense for landowners and developers to make that engagement as thorough and meaningful as possible.
When it comes to selecting sites and designs for Britain’s New Towns, necessary to meet housing demand and create communities rather than dormitories, winning broad support is not just nice to have, it is going to prove essential.
But the same principle or early and meaningful engagement with neighbours and stakeholders applies to all planning projects, whether housing development, renewable energy scheme or some other change of use.
The Committee’s report states that the need for engagement must start “even before any sites are formally designated.” It goes on: “Done well, such engagement will enhance the masterplans, reduce delays and build local pride and stewardship.”
It particularly emphasises the importance of engaging with young people calling for each new town to adopt a “youth engagement strategy for every stage of development, using proportionate digital tools to broaden participation.”
When KOR Communications’ Estate Matters podcast host Anna Byles was in conversation with Lord Gascoigne, who Chairs the Lords Built Environment Committee, he underlined the importance to landowners and developers of taking the community with them on any planning journey.
He accepted that to some new building can be controversial. But he made the point that questioning the impact of any new development – including a new town – does not automatically make the questioner an opponent of the plan, it merely means they are engaged.
He told Anna: “There can be people who will say ‘well, what impact will that have on my school, what are you going to do on the roads then, what shops are going to be in here – what does it mean to me?’ That doesn’t mean they are opposed to it – the engagement matters. You can explain and you can hear and listen to those concerns.”
Grace Gladding, KOR Communication’s Senior Consultant in Public Affairs, who joined the podcast, made the point that engaging with stakeholders and neighbours in the right way was vital. “Giving people the voice to have a say in the process without delivering a pre-baked cake is so important for creating that sense of community,” she said.
Last month (March 2026) seven proposed locations for new towns or the expansion of existing communities were announced by the Government. From major growth around Leeds and Manchester in the North to a 40,000-home new community in South Gloucestershire, near Bristol, the schemes aim to meet Britain’s growing housing need and also provide the infrastructure, and facilities residents will need.
The promise is to consult before work starts, ensuring that the people already resident in these areas and the families who will move in all get what they need and want, through playing a part in the planning process.
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