The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has undergone a ‘step change’ in the way it consults digitally with a far bigger and younger audience and plans to press ahead over its local plan in line with the recommendations set out in yesterday’s Planning White Paper.

The borough’s acting deputy head spatial planning Preeti Gulati Tyagi told the NLA borough briefing webinar on Thursday that, using Built-ID software, the council had managed to reach 270,000 people in the borough via advertisements, with 6,300 of those clicking through to the consultation page. ‘This is a step-change to the consultation responses that we achieved through our normal channels’, she said. ‘It’s reached a much bigger audience and a much younger audience as well, so we aim to continue using this method of engagement as we progress with our local plan’. Gulati Tyagi said it was ‘really exciting’ to have a digital local plan which is machine-readable in prospect and the council wants to be one of the first to ‘embrace that and take it forward’.

Head of spatial planning Jonathan Wade said that the Grenfell tragedy in June 2017 had had profound effects on the borough, but also had focused minds on what its strategic vision should be. As the smallest borough, 75% of which is a conservation area, that challenge is made all the harder, so it wants to ensure that investment and ‘good’ growth provides wider benefits, Wade said. 

Work has been focused too on the high streets, and effective consultation will be important in spreading the ‘good growth’ message and ‘taking residents with us’, said Wade. The council has also commissioned Arup to work on a ‘characterisation study’ for the borough, focused on finding areas of growth and including the creation of a ‘virtual room’ to help again with engagement. 

‘We are making real efforts to engage with as many people as possible in the borough’, Wade added, pointing to a new quality review panel and development forums instigated for emerging schemes. ‘We’ve been doing a lot of work identifying spaces that are underused’, said Wade. ‘Lockdown has provided a good opportunity for experiments and justifications. Otherwise, we’re going to end up with an empty high street, which isn’t going to help anybody’.

The council was taking a ‘proactive role’ in delivering good growth, said Growth and Delivery Team leader Daniel Massey, with an emphasis on community and stakeholder engagement on schemes like Kensal Canalside, again through Built-ID to gather early views on delivering 3,500 homes at what is a high density for the borough.

View the full event details here.