Advice on involving the local community before making a major development application.
If you’re applying for a major development, you’ll need to submit a Community Involvement Statement. You should involve the local community at the pre-application stage.
What community involvement is
You should discuss your proposals with the local community before you finalise the proposals. You can use the community’s local knowledge and feedback to make the proposals suitable for the area.
How to involve the community
Start by talking to the local residents’ planning group. You can find a list of planning groups at the Neighbourhood Planning Network website.
The local group can help you identify main local issues. They can also advise on the best way of getting a wider public response on specific parts of the proposal. This could be by setting up a meeting, doing a mail drop, holding an exhibition or developing a website.
Fill out the document record of community involvement (33 KB) to keep track of meetings, issues raised by the local community and changes made based on community feedback.
What a community involvement statement is
You can use your record of community involvement as your statement. Your statement needs to be signed off by both parties as a true record of discussions.
The statement must set out how you involved the community during the design process. You also need to include issues the community identified that affected the way you finalised your design. If you couldn’t change your design, you need to give reasons why.