Toolkit for Community Design Workshops
One of the reasons Ashford Borough Council achieved
Beacon status in planning for sustainable communities was its
pioneering work on Community design workshops. The Borough
Council initially partnered with the Princes
Foundation, English Partnerships
and The Campaign to Protect Rural
England to pilot the design workshops. Depending on the
site - its size and complexity workshops last between 1 and 3
days.
The Design workshop process brings people from many
different perspectives together to work towards consensus around
key principles of making better places and communities. This
process ensures that residents, councillor's, amenity groups,
landowners / developers, service providers and other stakeholders
are all part of the design process from the outset.
As a Beacon Council we are committed to sharing our experiences.
The 'Toolkit' below has been put together to show how Ashford
Borough Council's approach to involving the community in the
planning design process.
The toolkit below is not designed to cover all options but will
hopefully be a useful guide to adapt to your purposes.
Organising The Event
- The first step in organising not just workshops, but any event
is to draw up an Attendee List 12Kb
PDF with Invitation Letters 15Kb
PDF sent to all relevant parties / persons who may
have an active interest in the development site. Typically around
60-70 people are involved, including a cross section of the local
people.
- Before the event an agenda is circulated and an introductory
session is held with those new to the process to raise awareness
of urban design. An Event
Planning and Management Checklist 38Kb PDF is a
useful way to make sure you don't miss anything important!
During The Event
- The actual workshops brought interests from many different
perspectives together to work towards consensus around key
principles of making better places and communities.
- Ashford injected independent, experts to 'challenge'
conventional wisdom and to show new ways of designing places. An
independent facilitator will be needed to run proceedings.
- An Agenda 28Kb PDF should
be written so the event runs as smoothly as possible.
- The event starts with an Introductory Presentation with an
overview of the day. Later people divide into organised groups
for the days workshops. Groups should have at least one facilitator
to answer questions and clarify points. These can be reorganised
for workshops later in the event to combine people of
different interests so that as wide a debate as possible takes
place.
- Typically themes include movement and transport, open space,
economy, design and character.
- Groups required to come up with a series of key issues that
needed to be dealt with and specific proposals on how to resolve
them. We got people involved in this by playing the
Strategic Growth
Model Game 251Kb PDF.
- All comments must be captured and recorded (see below).
- A Feedback Comment Sheet 28Kb
PDF must be provided to test how effective the event
has been for participants. The results should be summarised.
After The Event
- Immediate feedback 52Kb PDF
to the local community can be very powerful - an evening surgery
open to all helps to spread the conclusions and ideas.
- A full workshop report 5.91Mb
PDF of all comments and proposed responses is produced
by the developer team and cleared beforehand by the event
facilitator and local authority.
- The workshop outputs often feed directly into
development briefs 6.87Mb
PDF or planning applications. Follow up consultation
events and mini workshops at later stages help to increase
confidence that initial workshop ideas have been followed through.
People can then see that their input has helped to shape what is
being built.
This webpage was updated on
1/31/2008