I have spent the last decade and more fascinated by the opportunity for social technologies to bring local communities together rather than pull them apart, to expand democracy rather than restrict it. In the early days of the internet this seemed inevitable, but it's been a long time since such lofty ideas were replaced by the web as a machine of money and power.
Read the full article in the Municipal Journal
So far it hasn't felt that 2025 will change anything. Tech bros are not covering themselves in democratic glory. But maybe, in the weeds of the upcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill, there is a glimmer of hope coming from an unlikely place.
The upcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill provides a crucial moment to irrevocably embed digital engagement at the heart of a planning system that is ready to deliver 1.5 million homes and significant infrastructure to the country.
Let me put my cards on the table. I co-founded community engagement platform Commonplace with exactly this vision: to inspire thriving places, powered by collaboration and data. While we have pioneered successful digital engagement techniques such as community heatmapping and engaged over 10 million people, the broader participatory wave I envisioned has yet to fully take shape-not for lack of effort, but because the right conditions have not been in place.
Rachel Reeves recently talked about 'zoning' around areas like train stations with a strong presumption in favour of building, and there have been similar ideas around the 'brownfield passport. On the face of it, this appears to be a shutting of the door on local democracy by excluding communities from influence over Individual planning decisions. But the opposite could be true.
Here is my thesis: having watched nearly 4,000 engagements, those that are set up as 'referenda' tend to be polarised, bad-tempered and ultimately less valuable to all parties. Whereas those that aim to co-design a solution to a problem can empower people. In certain situations, a zoning system removes the referendum, the if'. And here's the key: I think this could be positive for local democracy and influence, encouraging positive participation in the 'how' and 'what' of the change by removing the divisive 'if'. There are plentiful examples of popular, high quality and often digital citizen involvement working in places where planning is zonal, from Copenhagen to Rotterdam.
We don't even need to worry about turning NIMBYS into YIMBYS. Instead, step forward the SVIMBYS - a community that wants Something of Value In My Back Yard.
But why would a council or a developer bother with the community if they can just go ahead and build? Three massive reasons: politics, placemaking and prices. Politics, because if communities are completely excluded it will be politically untenable. Placemaking because there is evidence, including that which we published last year with Landsec, British Land and Berkeley Homes showing that strong engagement results in both better decisions and increased viability. And prices because there is extensive research showing that a greater sense of community leads to increasing house prices.
Although technology is not a panacea, it is a key enabler holding a strong and exciting role to play in catalysing this movement. Cities such as Leeds have already used technology to generate trust through a better understanding of community needs, drawn from representative surveys and social media analysis, and councils such as Surrey using it to gain huge ongoing community participation in identifying and co- designing solutions to local needs through digital mapping.
In other places it has been used to explain complex issues such as viability tradeoffs through interactive scenarios, sifting through thousands of public comments to identify key concerns by using Al-powered analysis to ensure that planners address the issues that matter most. Transparent digital platforms can track community input from the first consultation to project completion, demonstrating that voices are not just collected but acted upon.
The upcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill provides a crucial moment to irrevocably embed digital engagement at the heart of a planning system that is ready to deliver 1.5 million homes and significant Infrastructure to the country. It's time for the pioneers to step forward. Local authorities, developers, technologists and policymakers, spurred by the government's digital planning initiatives, have the tools, and I hope, the will, to make it happen. It is in this pioneering spirit that Commonplace, as part of Zencity, is poised to help. Our 360 degree tools gain and build community trust through listening, surveying and engaging.
Now is the time to turn vision into reality-local governments, suppliers and developers can seize the moment to fulfil this vision of technology at the service of communities, inspiring and creating better places to live everywhere.