Getting Engaged

The Towns Fund Delivery Partner is sharing blog posts the week of August 3 – 7 covering lessons learnt from our work with Cohort 1 towns who submitted their Town Investment Plans on 31 July. This post covers some lessons from our work on Community and Stakeholder Engagement. 

One of the keys to a successful Towns Fund bid is showing how you’ve involved local people in developing your plans. But what does successful engagement look like, and how do you know if you’re doing enough?

There’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to stakeholder engagement; towns come in all shapes and sizes, and have different needs and priorities. The same goes for their populations. What works for one town may not work for another. In short, your town is unique.

And that’s your starting point - Understanding the character and history of your town, and how it has got to where it is now, will give you real insight into what it needs for the future, and what the people who live there really want to see change and improve.

Many towns have embraced this by bringing together business leaders, community groups, health, education, arts, transport, local authority and elected representatives in a Town Deal forum, board, stakeholder reference group or thematic group to identify and discuss the key issues facing their town, their aims, objectives and aspirations.

Other towns have done it the other way round, and started by asking local people first for their top priorities for change and investment. One of the most successful we witnessed was, quite literally, answers on a postcard – a pop-up stand in a shopping centre where people were asked to jot down the key things that came to mind on a postcard and drop it in a collection box.

Feedback from local people is key to checking that you’re all on the same track. It can also provide exciting new ideas or point out things you might have missed.

Keep local people engaged with regular website updates and news stories. And when you draft your Town Investment Plan, provide the evidence – include details of your engagement exercises, the questions asked, methods used, who was involved, how you’ve used the feedback received, and how you will engage local people as projects develop.

Always remember that however good your projects look on paper, it’s local people who will be using or experiencing them. So get them engaged!