What should property developers be focusing on during this challenging time?

The Coronavirus is undoubtedly presenting a significant challenge to the vast majority of the economy, including the planning sector.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the team at Skyline Comms have been closely watching any developments, and offering advice to our clients as they navigate through these unprecedented times.

As we have advised our clients, this period of time should be used to boost the case for your development.

With physical face-to-face engagement being impossible during the present lockdown, we have identified three things that developers and planners should bear in mind in order to continue with effective engagement strategies during the coming weeks and months.

1. You can engage effectively without using an exhibition

Before looking at how to pivot your engagement over the coming weeks and months, it is important to understand that using an exhibition is not an essential part of community engagement.

The Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) only requires you to demonstrate that you have taken all reasonable measures to consult.

2. Understanding the state-of-play:

The industry, and the legal frameworks, have had to adapt swiftly over recent weeks.

Most authorities have adopted virtual committees already, some will not have a virtual planning committee until June and a small number have delegated responsibility to officers.

It is therefore important to understand the state-of-play within specific authorities, as it is likely that there will a number of different responses. We have also seen that some local authorities have been slower to implement new systems, so you need to know what stage your relevant authority is at.

As the lockdown continues, it is important to stay as up-to-date as possible with developments because there will undoubtedly be complications and further changes as local authorities react to them.

Our usual advice is for developers and planners to have a bespoke strategy for each local authority, and this period is no different.

3. How could you be engaging online?

As we highlighted earlier in the article, many of our clients have not found exhibitions to be cost-effective engagement strategies, and had been moving away from these even before this challenging time.

Online engagement strategies could include digital advertising, computer-generated imagery, digital PR and various forms of online marketing including email marketing.

From our experience, the earlier you look to engage these strategies, the more effective they will be.

It is also important to consider any engagement process as a data-driven exercise, and that one engagement strategy could be used to support more than one application.

Skyline Comms offers political insights at a local and national level, as well as political and community engagement to support applications through the planning process.

Our team are always up-to-speed with the latest digital strategies, and we have experience of bespoke engagement strategies and online PR campaigns.

To find out how we could support your political and community campaigns during this challenging time, please email our Managing Director James Hockney on j.hockney@skylinecomms.com or call 07958 389713.