What are examples of best practices for preparing a Statement of Community Involvement for planning applications? Read on to find out.

We have gone through several Statements of Community Involvement for residential planning applications and summarised good practices seen in those community engagement reports.

What is a Statement of Community Involvement for a planning application?

Validation guidance by Braintree Council states "a statement of community involvement explains how the community will be involved in the preparation of the planning application, and the steps that will be taken to encourage this involvement". 

A developers’ Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) is a crucial document for your planning application. The report needs to document the activities performed to engage and, more importantly, the response obtained from stakeholders and the local community. Reporting on engagement activities is an exercise for the project owner to revisit the designs and strengthen the proposal's fit to the local area.

In England, a Statement for Community Involvement for major planning applications is required under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (2004). The engagement report submitted with a planning application to document what engagement activities the design team delivered and the outcomes and learnings.

Undertaking community engagement for major applications is generally expected. Read our article to understand when you are obliged to submit an Statement of Community Involvement with your application. 

Documenting and reporting on community engagement can be an extremely rewarding exercise. 

Why are formal community engagement reports important?

The Statement of Community Involvement is a mechanism to ensure that your development project addressed and involved residents and that the benefits and potential impacts of the project have been discussed and reviewed by those residents who will be impacted by a construction project. 

When producing a Statement of Community Involvement, it helps to clearly envisage the audiences that would be likely to want to read this report: 

Six tips for a robust Statements of Community Involvement

Our review of eight master-planned residential schemes showed wide diversity in levels of effort to engage in both types of Statement of Community Involvement. Despite the varying ways of presentation and volume of content, the following tips tend to characterise better quality SCIs:

Consider the format and style of the document based on the purpose of the report that you aim to achieve. A document built around the narrative of the engagement activities can be of great interest to the public and be used as a way to advertise the project.

Especially for larger projects, where it counts to communicate with broad audiences, illustrating your points beyond plain text will prompt intrigue and can highlight facts you want to stand out.

Do you need to follow branding or a colour scheme? Will you include graphs and tables to showcase statistics and findings visually?

Below are two examples of SCIs that serve different purposes. 

The language you use should be easy to understand, especially if the Statement of Community Involvement is presented as a public-facing document. Your community should be able to read what has been proposed and digest any points made.

By using too much technical jargon, you risk excluding people you are trying to engage with.

The use of illustrations and images throughout helps make the document come to life.

In terms of substance, effective documentation of who has been spoken to helps demonstrate the audience's scope and scale and presents a robust approach.

Productive reports reflected on the scope of change possible in advance of community engagement and reflected on feedback about those choices. Community engagement becomes effective when some changes were offered in respose to feedback received; and reports that consider changes made become powerful conversational tools.

For example, the Statement of Community Involvement below offered a selection of layouts for the eventual site, which proved decisive for the further evolution of the design. 

The key focus of the engagement activity outcomes and your development should be clear from the outset.

Ideally the document will balance equally between descriptions of the project and the matters that arose from public engagement. 

It should communicate what details have been captured and how this information was used to understand your audience.

Identify and break down key themes from the engagement activities and the possible actions they identify what has happened in response to feedback.

You will demonstrate a robust design process and instil trust and respect in the place where you build by responding to concerns raised.

Creating effective Statement of Community Involvement

Engagement reports for planning applications differ widely in terms of appearance and content. The more your Statement of Community Involvement gives insight into the substance of responses received, the higher the chances of demonstrating a robust design process.

Ask yourself what purpose you want your Statement of Community Involvement to serve and what stakeholder engagement was for?

To help your team, start make use of a dedicated community consultation tool for your planning application. Leading planning consultation tools, such as the PlaceChangers Engagement tool, auto-generate visual community consultation reports, which can be attached to any Statement of Community Involvement for additional impact and transparency.