The bad news is that our key 1994 report for the Department of the Environment – "Community Participation in Planning and Development" – is no longer available (except by a request to us for a hard copy). This report laid the foundations for all the recent changes towards greater community involvement in planning. The good news is that the key chapter on participation in "Making Plans" (ODPM, 2002) is available as a download. This too fed directly into the planning reforms and is worth reading to see what government did and did not pick up on:
‘Making Plans Extract’ PDF – 184kb

More recently, drawing on a concern to fine-tune the new system re. community involvement, BDOR submitted evidence for what is now the "Planning for a Sustainable Future" White Paper:
‘BDOR Submission to DCLG’ PDF – 232kb

Following some concern that too much participation and engagement is ad hoc and run solely by ‘field workers’ without higher level organisational support, Jeff Bishop wrote a more thorough paper about how a Local Authority or Local Strategic Partnership (or any large organisation) can – in fact should – be establishing a more coherent "Infrastructure for Engagement" (as the paper is called). The model Jeff developed is already widely used in a variety of settings:
‘Infrastructure for Engagement’ PDF – 1.5mb

One core principle of good engagement is about replacing the outdated and damaging approach a colleague calls ‘Decide-Announce-Defend’ (DAD) with a more collaborative, front-loaded approach called ‘Engage-Deliberate-Decide’ (EDD). We have produced two papers on this. One (‘A Tale of Two Cities’) compares both approaches and shows the remarkable benefits of EDD over DAD. The other draws on experience and examples from us and others with several quick ‘cameos’ comparing the two approaches across a range of examples:
‘Tale of Two Cities’ PDF – 88kb
‘Conflict or Consensus Cameos’ PDF – 104kb

A continued glaring and damaging weakness in the new planning system in relation to community involvement is the poor guidance on final ‘reports of involvement’ – the all-important evidence-based audit trails. (And this can apply to any involvement, whether in planning or not.) We have produced a very practical note on how to produce the sort of report that can (if properly done) provide a robust audit trail that can stand up to appeal, inquiry or even an appearance in court!
‘Reports of Consultation’ PDF – 224kb



In May 2006 BDOR (with others) produced a report on ‘Community Plans’ for SWAN (the South West Acre Network), the MCTA (Market and Coastal Towns Association) and SWRDA, GOSW, DEFRA and the Commission for Rural Communities. ‘Community Plans’ for us includes Parish Plans and Market and Coastal Town Strategic Plans (and, to a lesser extent, Village Design Statements). The report looked ahead to a different and positive future for such plans, now consolidated through the "Strong and Prosperous Communities" White Paper as well as the planning White Paper. The research has already been well used and several regional initiatives have spun off from it. There are two items, a summary report and a full report, both listed here:
‘Swan Report - Summary’ PDF – 96kb
‘Swan Report - Full’ PDF – 928kb
Jeff Bishop was commissioned by SWAN and the MCTA to prepare a submission to the planning White Paper:
‘SWAN/MCTA submission’ PDF – 280kb
Jeff has also published two articles on this topic:
‘Article for Town and Country Planning Journal’ PDF – 136kb
‘Article for Planning’ PDF – 80kb



Having worked on several aspects of planning for renewable energy, Jeff Bishop worked with the Centre for Sustainable Energy and others to develop ‘protocols’ for community engagement in wind energy projects. These have now been published formally by government (with Ministerial endorsement) for both England and Wales:
‘Wind Protocol England’ PDF – 312kb
‘Wind Power Community Benefits’ PDF – 240kb



BDOR does not put on a regular, marketed programme of training. Jeff Bishop delivers training in facilitation, process design and network establishment/management with InterAct Networks (link here), runs some ad hoc courses and supports others in their training programmes. Jeff’s training is always very popular and successful – on a recent course 8 participants (out of 14) scored the course 10/10! Recent/current courses include:
Facilitation skills (for policy planners):
‘Outline of Facilitation Course’ PDF – 400kb
Community Involvement and Development Control (for DC planners and developers):
‘Outline of DC Course’ PDF – 416kb

Process Design (for ‘anybody’ doing engagement):
‘Process Course Brochure’ PDF – 1.5mb
All of the above are planned as ‘hosted’ courses. A ‘host’ is typically a local authority, whose staff then receive some financial benefit in exchange for the provision of a venue and catering. Contact us if you are interested in ‘hosting’ an event.



An initiative on which BDOR undertook the consultation was recently featured in Planning magazine:
‘Planning Article 2’ PDF – 520kb