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Introduction

During our work with towns and parishes on neighbourhood planning, it became clear that one of the biggest issues facing communities is the shortage of affordable housing for local people.
In Cornwall and in many other areas this has resulted in local people, and in particular young people, being unable to find an affordable place to live close to their families or their places of work.
With this backdrop we have been partnering with Coastline Housing Limited a leading housing association in Cornwall to help them inform and engage the communities where they are looking to build.

Challenges

Many of the challenges Communities need a mix of residents if they are to be truly sustainable and to thrive. This means providing a mix of different kinds of housing, including homes which are affordable for local people.
To gain planning permission for these projects it is vital to make sure that local communities are consulted and understand what is being proposed. This is particularly the case given the scope for communities to misunderstand proposals and underlying needs and the difficulties that this can cause.
Coastline were also very keen to get local knowledge about sites and needs.

Solutions

Having seen first-hand how the GoCollaborate platform enables local communities to work together on neighbourhood planning, Coastline supported us to design a new version of the platform that would enable housing associations (as well as private developers) to engage with the communities in which they are proposing to build.
Following the successful build, we supported the Coastline team as they used the platform to complete reserved matters applications and as part of pre-app submissions consultations.
The platform enabled Coastline to focus on issues previously raised by the parish council and members of the public as the starting point, with information being presented in five themes : Scheme Design, Roads and Parking, Environment, Utilities and Drainage and Eligibility for the homes.
By visiting and registering on a dedicated website, that could also be accessed via a QR code, communities are able to view plans, documents and ask questions about the scheme.

Results

Example results: After identifying land for a potential affordable housing development in two villages in Cornwall, Coastline Housing sought pre-application advice from Cornwall Council for providing affordable homes for people with a local connection to the parishes. As part of this process they were keen to seek the views of local people on the draft designs so they could be amended if required before an application was formally submitted.
Using the dedicated GoCollaborate platforms, details of the draft designs and information about the proposal were provided to the local community.
By the end of the four-week consultation period, 86 people had registered on the two platforms. The parallel Facebook campaign to inform residents about the consultations reached 3,565 people, resulting in 187 different visitors to the platform and 45 comments.
A further consultation for a scheme at Connor Downs saw 1145 people reached and 229 platform visits and 30 comments.

We have been working with the GoCollaborate team to develop a platform which helps us extend our public engagement. We’re really pleased with the results and how the platform will helps us to inform and take into account views and opinions as we go through the design and planning process.

Chris Weston
Director of Development and Commercial Service - Coastline Housing Association

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