Community engagement advice for applicants

Why community engagement is important

Community engagement is helpful when you're applying for planning permission.

It gives you the opportunity to talk to neighbours and communities to explain your planning proposals and discuss with them any concerns they have. It can reduce the risk of community tension or help to quickly address it.

The feedback from this process can be used to inform and refine the design and technical detail of your planning proposal before making a planning application.

Applicants should do some form of community engagement whether you're a:

• homeowner looking to build an extension on your home
• homeowner or property developer looking to build more than 1 dwelling or mixed-use development on a plot of land
• business owner, landlord or landowner looking to construct or extend a commercial property, or change the planning use class of a property of piece of land

Before starting your community engagement

Our pre-application planning advice service

We encourage pre-application discussions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the planning application process. We offer a pre-application planning advice service and encourage you to use this before you begin any engagement activities or make a formal planning application submission.

The scope and timetable for your early engagement activities should be set out in an early engagement strategy document. This should be submitted along with other supporting documents and plans for your planning pre-application advice enquiry.

If an applicant is unsure what to do after reading the information on this page, our pre-application planning advice service are happy to discuss the scope and timescales of early engagement activities with you.

If you've already started your community engagement activities and have feedback from people, we would welcome you to discuss this with us in a formal planning pre-application advice meeting.

Sharing feedback from this process will help us identify any key planning considerations that may disrupt the application process.

Engaging with the pre-application planning advice service can help with:

• identifying consultation or planning related issues or requirements
• speeding up the development process
• minimising extra or unnecessary planning application costs
• avoiding wasted applications

Applicants are strongly encouraged to utilise the pre-application planning advice service prior to commencing any community engagement activities. The LPA expects applicants to consult neighbours and the local community before applying for planning permission. It gives you the opportunity to talk to neighbours and communities to explain your planning proposals and discuss with them any concerns they have. It can reduce the risk of community tension or help to quickly address it. The feedback from this process can be used to inform and refine the design and technical detail of your planning proposal before making a planning application. Engagement methods will vary depending on the scale of the scheme - the pre-application planning advice service can discuss the scope and timescales of early engagement activities required

How much engagement you should do

The amount of engagement will depend on your planning application.

Before you submit your planning application, you may need to engage with:

• neighbours (residents and businesses)
• the local community
• statutory and non-statutory consultees (Environmental Health, Highways, Conservation, Councillors, resident forums or groups)

Engagement will give you an opportunity to:

• identify concerns early on
• find out about local knowledge and ideas
• reduce delays at the planning application stage

Check how much engagement you'll need to do

After you've engaged with the community

Applicants should submit a Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) along with supporting documents and plans for your formal planning application. Householder planning applications such as domestic extensions  don't require an SCI. 

Whilst not a statutory requirement, it is strongly encouraged by national and local policy, especially for major development, non-major sensitive and complex developments. Applicants are often required to submit an SCI to demonstrate how they have engaged with the community before submitting a planning application to the LPA.

The scope of the applicants SCI is to focus on pre-application consultation; show feedback from the community has influenced the proposal. It may include details of public exhibitions, meetings, surveys, and responses. It is intended for the Council and the public to understand the applicant’s engagement efforts.

It should set out the type of community engagement undertaken and the success of these methods. Include details of the community viewpoints and where appropriate, the changes made to the planning proposal because of these views.

Accordingly the applicants SCI document should:

• identify the scope of community engagement and explain how this has been achieved
• provide an overview of community participation activities and show details of the engagement methods that have been used to meet the expected scope.
• outline a summary of who was consulted, including local residents, community groups, councillors, and statutory consultees
• detail the methods used for engagement, such as public exhibitions or drop-in events; meetings with local groups or forums; online surveys or dedicated websites; and social media outreach.
• clearly set out the extent and scale of engagement, which should be proportionate to the size and impact of the proposed development
• demonstrate how the methods used have been inclusive of key stakeholders and the wider community
• demonstrate and confirm that the engagement aligns and complies with the LPA’s adopted Statement of Community Involvement, and relevant local validation requirements.
• have a schedule or timeline of when the engagement was undertaken, include other milestones such as engagement with officers and/or Councillors and application submission
• produce a clear account and full summary of the comments and concerns raised, in addition to all other feedback provided by those consulted during each round of engagement and how the scheme has been changed to address these. If no changes were made, the decision to make no changes should be explained.
• include a template copy of the questionnaire; survey form; or any other forms/documents which participants were asked to complete following community engagement.
• provide evidence of attendance records and number of responses received.
• include an Appendix section to the SCI which provides copied images of consultation materials such as leaflets, posters, presentations.

Our principles for involving the community and approach to public engagement

The Council’s approach to what good engagement looks like is set out in Barnet’s Consultation and Engagement Strategy. The LPA’s Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) has been shaped by the Consultation and Engagement Strategy, whilst also having regard to the Councils Community Participation Strategy (2022). It sets out how the community can get involved in the preparation of local planning policy documents and decisions on planning applications.

The Statement of Community Involvement provides clear messaging on the positive impacts and importance of community engagement in the planning process.  It is a framework document which sets out how the Council conducts consultation and engagement with local people, local business, organisations and other key stakeholders to make the planning process transparent, inclusive and accountable, as well as beneficial to the community. It outlines the LPAs statutory and non-statutory duties on the following:

• What the Council will consult and engage the community on;
• When the Council will consult and engage the community;
• How the Council will consult and engage the community;
• Who within the community the Council will consult and engage with;
• Ways of involving the community in preparing planning policy documents; and
• Consultation methods for involving the community on planning applications

The Statement of Community Involvementprovides a strong commitment and mechanism for:

• inclusive engagement
• early involvement
• continuity
• collaboration
• accountability and transparency

Find out about the Statement of Community Involvement.