Links I like 11.10.22

‘Engagement’: fashionable yet bankrupt – Canalside View Martin Weigel writes at length about the industry-wide misuse of the term ‘engagement’ and hits the nail squarely on the head a number of times. The problems he cites in his nine ‘bad habits’ of engagement highlight his main point that the phrase has become so widely used, [...]

Cashes Green consultation puts localism into action

I returned from the Easter break today to the good news that a planning application to transform the derelict Cashes Green Hospital in Stroud into new homes and community facilities has been submitted to the local planning authority to consider. I blogged in January about the impressive level of consultation that had gone into shaping the proposals that [...]

Funding news underlines local comms challenges

This week’s announcement that the HCA is investing almost £2.5m in a vital estate regeneration project in Devon was particularly satisfying for me. The Forches estate in Barnstaple in not at the front of many people’s minds when they think about the lifestyle that Devon offers. But the area poses some very real issues of substandard housing, deprivation and unemployment which exist in pockets across [...]

Report highlights comms as key to localism drive

I blogged recently about how localism needs effective community engagement to work well. A newsworthy report by Deloitte this week has highlighted this as one of the main challenges identified by local authority chief executives, who are expected to be at the forefront of the localism drive. Deloitte interviewed chief executives of 15 local authorities, who collectively manage a £7.4bn budget and employ more than 100,000 [...]

Community comments key to Cashes Green consultation

After a huge amount of work, the final consultation event to discuss the future of the derelict hospital in Cashes Green, Stroud, was held yesterday. Proposals to deliver 78 homes on the site, which is owned by the HCA, has generated more than its fair share of interest, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the site has been disused [...]