How digital technologies can support Town engagement with communities
Isobel Vernon-Avery
Through the Towns Fund programme, 101 Towns in England are undertaking transformative projects to support and cater to their communities. As projects progress from ideas to reality, it is important that communities are engaged, informed and included. During the pandemic, digital ways of engagement were necessary; as we emerge from this time, it is a good moment to broaden how consultation can be extended and updated. This blog outlines how digital technologies can support engagement.
There is a need for greater diversity in how communities join local authorities during project and town development. While long standing methods such as town halls are still greatly needed, there is an opportunity through digital technologies to include more voices and to co-create with communities to a greater extent.
“People will say all sorts of things in a response to a survey. But transformative change happens when people are in a space together working”.
- Engagement specialist Daisy Froud
Digital technologies can help bring projects to life through visualisations or installations. For example, using interactive visualisation tools such as augmented reality (AR) can help create excitement and a develop collaboration between local authorities, developers and communities. Evolving hybrid approaches, such as AR, mix digital and physical engagement with the same groups of people to stimulate this ‘working together’ that helps change thrive. This hybrid approach also can address digital inclusion to ensure that device access or skills do not limit participation.
The following ideas can act as inspiration into how digital technologies can support town engagement with communities.
Built ID to understand what communities think
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) developed a Spatial Planning Document for a 4,000-home site at Kensal Rise. In person drop-ins in busy locations were very successful, whilst flyers attracted less attendees to workshops. The digital platform, Built ID, was also used to launch surveys and to share social media posts. Using this platform to collect survey responses. Being able to coordinate consultation activity helped address consultation fatigue too.
YARD to see how places will look
YARD is an AR tool for engaging communities in public space developments. Communities can choose and place digital representations of objects to build up virtual images that can test and improve the interventions. This helps improve the quality of the public domain by co-creating with the people that end up using the spaces. Importantly, it stimulates conversations during the engagement process. YARD has been used in the UK but also has been used in vulnerable urban environments.
Interactive art to engage people
myCup was installed in London as part of Earth Day. The installation was made out of 8,000 cups with the aim to educate and inspire recycling. Visitors could join myCup WiFi network and access and interactive interface which allowed them to activate lighting and collaboratively generate new lighting patterns.
Another example is Hull. Since 2019, Hull residents have been able to vote online and in person on the colours that will form the Spring Bank area. These colours form the basis of a series of art projects in the area but stemmed from over 3000 people voting on their preference.
If you require further assistance, please submit an expert drop-in hour form or speak to your Town coordinator.
There are also wider engagement resources listed here:
- ‘Engagement through Delivery’ by listening back to our webinar.
- Steps for aligning internal communications for delivery blog
- Towns Fund: Top tips to engage through delivery
- Comms and Engagement playbook is here.