What constitutes meaningful engagement for new large scale urban development? Learning from the TRUUD project, UK

Community participation in urban development has the potential to increase the quality of place-making, through enabling responsive development. However, public participation in practice is fraught with contradictions and tensions, not least due to it often being conducted late in the decision-making process, resulting in limited opportunities for influence, as well as loss of trust amongst communities in planning and development stakeholders. Poor representation is a further issue that can erode trust and perpetuate inequalities. The participating ‘public’ is often dominated by white, more affluent, educated people, and potential future residents of new developments are not provided a voice.

We will share findings from TRUUD (‘Tackling Root causes Upstream in Unhealthy Urban Development), a 5-year inter-disciplinary and applied research project focusing on promoting health and addressing inequalities through urban development decision-making in the UK. Over 100 semi-structured interviews conducted by TRUUD researchers with local and national government and private sector representatives resulted in recommendations to improve community participation processes, highlighting the importance of timing, equity, and trust.

TRUUD also has a ‘Researcher-in-Residence’ working on a regeneration initiative in a central city location where an industrial/warehouse area adjoining a deprived residential area will be transformed to a mixed-use neighbourhood, creating over 1000 new homes. Participation activities have been designed to ensure local communities contribute to the planning of this regeneration project. These include early outreach events, involving adults, young people and primary school children; digital engagement; ‘heritage-capture’ walks; an Artist-in-Residence role; and the development of community-led ‘Place Principles’ to guide the area spatial framework plan. We will examine how this participation strategy ‘speaks to’ the themes of timing, equity and trust in addressing known challenges, but also poses further questions concerning the nature of meaningful public participation in urban development.