Stakeholder Engagement: Best Practice for Regeneration Projects
- Delivery Associates Network
- Oct 11, 2024
- 24 min read
Updated: Mar 21
Webinar
Are your stakeholders allies or obstacles to the success of your regeneration project? This webinar is for all those who are navigating the complex world of stakeholder engagement in your regeneration projects.
Timestamps
Timecodes:
00:00 - 03:38: Introductions and Agenda
03:38 - 07:37: Menti on engagement
07:37 - 12:50: Public Engagement is crucial
12:35 - 19:22: The Challenges we face
19:22 - 26:56: Engagement tactics and the public
26:56 - 32:16: Stakeholder Map
32:16 - 38:09: Ongoing Engagement
38:09 - 44:10: Stakeholder Background and ways of monitoring
44:10 - 56:50: Conclusion
Transcript
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 0:03
Thanks, Wendy.
And I think we've got some slides to share in a moment.
But just while we're sort of getting that up and running and just do some introductions.
So I'm Ellen Sanderson.
Clark, I'm a town planner by background.
So predominantly working on large scale city centre generation projects that I'm currently working full time on, this delivery associates network program.
So I've been fully immersed on the developer side and on the public sector side.
Public consultations, obviously are really key part of town planning processes, and I've worked on a variety of projects that have need various different approaches.
I'm looking to share my experience on the importance of public consultation today and hand over to Angeliki to introduce herself too.
Angeliki Stogia 0:53
Hi, good morning everyone.
And my name is Angelika Stogia.
I am a stakeholder engagement and communications associate and I am based down here in Manchester or up here in Manchester.
Depending on where you are geographically and where I lead, a team of stakeholder engagement consultants, my passion is engagement and my experience is in complex clients projects that require significant attention to engagements that are ranging from water and energy projects, transport and regeneration.
And I'll be very happy to share some tools from my toolbox today as we go through the presentation.
But I'm handing back to you, Ellen, for the first part of this presentation.
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 1:38
Thank you.
So if we could skip through to just the agenda for today, I'll just very quickly run through what we're hoping to to get through.
And so and we're going to start with setting the scene for for stakeholder engagement and we want to keep this a fairly interactive session given that the topic is engagement and but we're going to talk to you first and then we've got a little mentee pole to, get the creative juices flowing I guess.
And I'm going to talk you through the the importance of engagement and why we consult and the challenges that we also face when we consult.
And then Angelique, he's going to run through her tactics for engagement.
For addressing those challenges and looking to, share her insight on how to run an effective consultation program and then we're going to spend some time at the end discussing overcoming common challenges.
And we're also looking to so Ghana, your feedback on what challenges you're facing and so we can help scope some future webinars that go more in depth into specific challenges and issues that you might be facing.
I'm so without further ado, if you just skip on to the next slide and it's like I say, I want to keep this interactive be really useful for us to understand the issues and challenges that you're experiencing.
We are here to help and respond to your challenges and we want to make sure that you're getting the most from this session.
So we would like to start with the with the mentee pole to get a flavour about what, what the challenges are that you're facing on and what you've what your experiences of of quality consultations is.
So far I'm jst as a wider point, and if you can stay on mute and raise your hand if you want to speak happy to have some engagement throughout the process.
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 03:38
If you want to use the chat box or questions or even if it's just a observational comment, we'll save the chat and the poll responses, and that can help inform the scope of future sessions, too.
Really keen for you to engage where you can and if you want to, please do put your camera on so that we can see you.
So if you can, you can use the QR code on the screen to access the poll, or if not, if you go to menti.com and enter the code there, that will bring up the poll for you to answer.
The question is think of a time when you felt truly engaged with a public project, campaign or Community initiative.
What was the one thing that captured your interest and made you feel involved?
And if we can try and keep it to one or two word answers if possible. We'll give people a few minutes.
Angeliki Stogia 4:52
I feel in that there are a few things here that say I'm going to be talking about with regards to the toolbox that are coming through.
I think good communication is the one that is in bold regular updates, which is great to see.
Feeling valued.
This is an interesting one, this is a very interesting one.
Youth engagement?
I wonder the person who wrote good communication, what they meant with it.
What did good communication feel like?
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 5:55
Happy if you want to put your hand up or come off mute and share or pop things in the chat if you want to add more detail?
Angeliki Stogia 6:04
Consistency.
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 6:07
Honesty.
Angeliki Stogia 6:07
Wow, honesty? Yes!
A creative approach.
Clear expectations.
Wow, sounds like someone needs to sit in my seat.
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 6:34
Realistic as well is a good one.
Angeliki Stogia 6:37
Brilliant.
Some really good words are coming are coming through.
OK, this is great.
I I wrote good communication, says allies.
And because she thinks knowing why the engagement is being done and what your feedback will be used for is really important, this is great.
Precisely, there is a step that is not in my toolbox that entails setting out objectives for engagement at the start of the process.
So you hit the nail right on the head there.
And then the Lisa says that creative approaches tend to have higher participation rates.
Just do it.
Ellen, back to you.
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 7:37
Yes.
Thank you everyone.
I think there's quite a lot there that hopefully will address as we go through, but yeah, it's nice to see that people have got some good understanding of water, a good engagement process looks like.
So yes, why do we do public engagement?
Stakeholder engagement and why is it so important?
I guess aside from being a regulatory or statutory requirement at some stages of the development process, effective consultation, all stages of the process of the development process can make or break a project, public engagement and consultation on projects is essential for fostering Community support, leveraging local knowledge, ensuring inclusivity and equity, complying with the legal requirements.
And I guess finally enhancing the sustainability and long term success of a project and it can transform regeneration from a top down process that people feel disengaged from into a collaborative effort.
And overall that will better meet the needs and aspirations of the Community who are ultimately the people who are going to be living, working or playing in the finished product.
So it's really central to all development processes.
So just taking each one in turn that we've got here enhancing community buying and support.
And I guess part of that is building trust, engage in the Community, it fosters trust and transparency between the project planners or the decision makers and the residents.
When people feel heard and involve, they're much more likely to support the project and it can also serve to reduce resistance to projects and ones that that are imposed, I guess, without consultation, often face the most amount of resistance, and also engaging the public early can help identify the concerns and issues which can allow time to either have an effective consultation process and explain why the decisions are being made, or make adjustments to the project before it's too late, I guess.
Which links with the next benefit of improving project outcomes.
And so I guess using local knowledge residents possessing valuable local knowledge that a successful engagement strategy can really tap into and can inform better planning processes and decision making, they can provide insights on what their communities actually need and what their preferences are and consider potential issues that people external to that community might overlook and that can also lead to what more innovative ideas and more creative ideas that enhance the projects quality and relevance and overall success long term success of the project.
Right.
I am a fundamental part of of engagement is enhancing the social equity side of things.
So it inclusive development and will engage a diverse cross section of the community and ensure that the needs of interest and needs and interests of different groups, including marginalized populations, are properly considered, which ultimately promotes more equitable and inclusive development.
And it can also serve to help address it inequalities, so consultation can help identify and address existing social and economic, another inequalities, helping to ensure the regeneration project benefits as many people as possible.
And I guess fundamentally to a lot of projects and the consultation is necessary for legal and policy compliance in many jurisdictions, public consultations are legal requirement and adhering to these regulations is essential not just for project approvals, but also for funding opportunities.
And and it can also help with aligning with policy planning policy or otherwise, to ensure that projects align with broader political and policy goals, such as sustainable development, social inclusion, economic growth, etcetera.
I'm not on the slide, but I guess another fundamental reason why we do consultation is because it it ensures the long term success of a project.
I'm engaging properly with the community, can create ownership when the community is involved in the process, they develop a sense of responsibility and ownership towards a project which can ultimately enhance its success.
Ongoing engagement also allows for adaptations to the project as you go.
So, where you've got feedback during and after implementation?
Ellen Sanderson-Clark 12:50
And the so yes, ongoing engagement allows for adaptive management and it can allow changes to the project during implementation and afterwards to make sure it remains effective and relevant in the long term.
As well as understanding the needs of internal stakeholders when we're talking about public Sector Council projects and and the importance of their support and how they can impact a project can be welcome considered through the the stakeholder strategy.
So the ideal reasons of why we do a consultation, as I'm sure you're all aware I guess shown by the number of people we've got here, consultation stakeholder engagement activities are not without their challenges.
And so we can talk about some of the key challenges.
Sorry, we can go on to the next slide.
Thank you.
And and the impact that that has on projects and a high level consideration of how to address them and Angelique, he's going to discuss the solutions and tactics in more detail later.
So we put them in three buckets and poor public perception, diverse and transient populations and resource constraints, obviously aware that there's many factors that go into this, but just as a general view and poor public perception, I guess the challenge itself is that many people might feel that decision makers are not transparent about their decisions.
And I think that came through in the in the mentee poll responses or that they do not genuinely consider the public input.
And this perception can really lead to a lack of trust and a reluctance to engage, which you know, as we said before, can have a long term impact on the successful project.
So it could result in in distrust.
It could also lead to scepticism and criticism of the development project itself, which could impact on planning, decision making or funding decisions, or whatever else other processes that you have to go through, where you need general support to a project.
And I guess when we're talking specifically about public sector projects, it can have a wider impact beyond the development projects.
Such as on the perception of the Council as a whole or the political influence.
So it it has potential for a really big impact.
I'm a simple solution.
I'm not without its nuances is that I'm decision making improving the transparency of decision making, openly sharing information, clearly communicating the decision making processes and the factors that are influencing the decisions and demonstrating how resident or community feedback or stakeholder feedback is used.
So I guess that is that open and and good quality communication that, we've talked about before that is is going to be have a real impact on the the public perception point.
And we're talking about the diverse and hard to reach populations.
I guess the challenge itself is that there's there's various people who are going to be be impacted by a development project from different age groups, ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, and people with different levels of digital literacy or accessibility, so reaching effectively and engaging all segments of the population can be really difficult.
I'm and the impact of that is that I'm you would get unrepresentative feedback and decisions that don't reflect the needs and desires of all stakeholders and ultimately it can make groups of people feel excluded from the development process.
I'm, I guess notably as well, the quieter voices can often feel it.
A disproportionate impact of their voice is not being heard, so it's a really important, point to be able to listen to to everybody who's going to be be impacted by the development project.
And again, it's a simple but not necessarily easy solution.
Is implementing multiple engagement strategies and a a mix of in person events, online platforms, social media and targeting specific groups can help reach a wider audience and also providing the information in multiple formats.
Different languages can also increase the accessibility.
And I guess the final point is the constraints on resources.
Public sector and other projects often operate with limited budgets, staff, resources and time, which can constrain the ability to conduct a comprehensive and effective engagement activity.
When there's so many pressures on a project, the impact of that is that there's fewer engagement opportunities, insufficient follow-ups, lower quality interactions, which can essentially diminish the effectiveness of the engagement efforts.
And again, simple solution.
Not necessarily easy, but front loading the engagement process with the stakeholder mapping exercise so that prioritization of engagement activities can be considered and to make sure that your that the the the resources that you do have are deployed in the in the right way to engage the people who are going to be be most impacted by the developments seeking partnerships with community organizations and levering technology can also streamline processes and help you maximize the resources available. Additionally, there's always the option of seeking external funding or grants for specific engagement projects and to provide additional support, or I guess, considering other opportunities for getting funding or resourcing for those activities because it's a sort of specific, tangible work stream.
And I guess in conclusion, by addressing these challenges, we can improve engagement with residents and stakeholders and fostering a more inclusive and participatory decision making process overall to hopefully achieve all the benefits that we've talked about before.
And the reasons why we do consultation.
Ellen Sanderson-Clark 19:22
I'm going to hand over to Angeliki now to share some engagement tactics on how to address these challenges.
I'm although I have seen a couple of points in the chat, it's worth picking up those now.
I sometimes think that getting communities port means ensuring that community doesn't object.
We prefer to try and develop a sense of Community ownership over the project solution, so more active involvement rather than simply seeking passive support.
I think that's a really good point and hopefully something that anglik he's gonna pick up on in more detail.
I'm and then we've got a further issues that sometimes a completely separate issue.
The local community is unhappy about can hydrate your engagement work.
I think that's another really good point.
And again, the point that those loud voices don't necessarily represent the views of the entire community.
So thinking about how to engage the quieter voices for the to consider the impact of the project as a whole is is a really important part of considering Angeliki.
Angeliki Stogia 25:56
So if you want to change the slides, I'm going to take you now to the second tool, which looks a bit more.
This slide is a busy slide and this is a stakeholder mapping exercise.
These are tools that we highly encourage our clients to do and is to sit down with your executive team and your management team.
The team, who is leading the process and map out who are your stakeholders and how interested they are in the project.
So we use the simple matrix of interest and power influence along the horizontal axis.
We have stakeholder interest and in the vertical axis you have the power or influence.
So if you look at the red a bit and this is the high interest high powers they called as these are stakeholders who are interested in the work interested in the project and also have a very high influence to impact the project and its direction.
So these are the people that you want to absolutely engage and make sure that they feel engaged.
You need to keep them satisfied and it doesn't mean that you give them everything that you ask that they ask for or talk about.
It means that you make sure that they feel heard.
If you go to the green box and the low interest by heart, but high power stakeholders, these are the people that have been on board with the project and the interest is potentially waning or they have got a number of projects that they're interested in.
And and this is just one of them.
And these are people that you truly also want to keep them in, engaged in the project.
You need to anticipate their needs.
Talk to them.
Monitor their needs and seek their input at appropriate times.
And really, make sure that you stay in contact with them as and when they want to and or at appropriate times in the project life cycle.
So don't give them more information that they want to receive.
Do not overwhelm them with information to choose your moments of when to engage with them in the project.
And where you have stakeholder interest with a high level of interest by a low level of power, this is the blue box and these stakeholders you make.
You need to make sure that you inform them completely and that you monitor your relationships with them.
Quite closely.
These are the people that will be knocking at your door.
These are the people that will be sending you emails.
So these are the people that will be potentially organizing campaigns if they're not happy with the proposal and these these, these are the people that you know you you need to keep informed and you want to engage with them because you still want to understand very interest despite the fact that they have a low power and you want to understand what they say and you want to know what their motivation is and you want to make sure that they remain engaged with you rather than just throw bricks at you.
Sometimes it feels like that, so let's go to the brown box now.
And for these people, this is where you can loosen up the engagement range.
You still want to keep them engaged, but you don't need to have the same level of engagement as with your high power high interest people.
These other stakeholders that are probably going to be happy with sharing you, sharing information with them, and these are the ones that you need to design potentially special tactics to engage.
And these are the one who need less.
If you like of the touch and doing this engagement or planning out your engagement with them and he's going to help, you know, help you remember when they when they need to be engaged, but generally they will be happy.
These stakeholders to with you sharing information as and when it happens and doing check-ins as they need to happen.
So this tool is a quick and dirty matrix if you like that you can use to start framing your engagement.
Uh planning and you need to identify the name of the people in the groups that fall into these categories.
This helps frame who are the stakeholders and where are the ones that you need special taxes to engage and where are the ones that you need less of a touch.
So doing this really helps you to kick off the process and we offer this as one of the first few tactics when we have discussions around a project.
So the key methods around this is to effectively engage your stakeholders.
Angeliki Stogia 32:16
You need to start mapping them using simple matrix of interest and power or influence which helps identify where do you prioritize your engagement strategy.
So especially if you are low on resources, then you know where do you need to be spending your time with your stakeholders.
So the next the third tool someone already mentioned it the third tool which is very important is ongoing engagement.
And so this is about engaging hopefully at every point on the regeneration strategy, on the regeneration project, especially as Ellen said on the front end of it, it becomes very difficult when organizations that have an executive team and SMT team, a leadership that creates the strategic, you know, regeneration plan and then tells others how things are going to go and and then it is also hard when but you know, local authority applies for funding for a project that they want to do, but they have not engaged anyone.
So you know, they get the funding potentially and then they have a whole lot of people to take through.
This is, you know, what the thinking was.
This is why we applied for it.
Then you put yourself in the position where you're backed in the corner, asking questions and justifying rather than working together to give them a chance to help you build the narrative and tell the story also to the to the funders.
So it's really important if you if you if you want, that's the conversation is is being created and together with stakeholders and this will give you a better chance and for the project to be successful and to mitigate the risks.
And So what you need to do is to tell them.
Tell your stakeholders that this is what you have got going on.
This is the plan if you like for creating the plan.
This is the process that we will use.
This is when it will happen.
These are the mechanisms we are considering to collecting inputs.
This is who is involved, just be transparent, be transparent as you possibly can.
And and inform the stakeholders about the planning process, what it will be like.
So the different stakeholders that sit in different sides of the local authority internally and externally and they have different perspectives, different insights on the project and the issue that you're trying to address and different inputs and they can help you see blind spots.
So someone might come from the States and tell you, oh, well, actually we're doing this.
That is in the states it doesn't.
You need to adjust.
You're thinking because you know this is what we have got going or highways team might tell you that you know, the passenger transport authority has got this program and here is where we can get some more funding for these or you need to talk to sort of XY and ZI think that you you probably already know this.
I am, I think, a reinforcing and you know reinforcing knowledge that you already have.
So if you are doing as much as engagement up front, you're you're on, you're on the money.
So one of the conversation and that you need to have you with your stakeholders is what they can expect in terms of communication updates.
So tell them what you will tell them, then actually tell them then delivers information and the updates as promised, and then it's also important on the back end that you follow up and make sure that you have a true understanding of and what they stakeholders have, the true understanding of what you have shared, answer their questions, address their concerns.
It's not your job to make everyone agree with your plan, but it is your job to do everything that you can to achieve alignment around the essence of the project direction, and these are two very different and distinct approaches.
If you are responsible for the project, you need to make sure that you know who your stakeholders are.
Make sure you tell them that it is happening.
Make sure your address the questions and concerns as they come up and follow on their understanding.
Consistency is key.
When consistency builds a trust, so the other thing, the tool that I'm not going to talk to you about is you might have heard it is a project method house so that everybody's that talks about the specific project they use specific ways to talk about this project.
And so the key methods for this slide is engaging your stakeholders from the outset of a regeneration project is crucial.
It helps you build trust.
It helps you ensure alignment.
It helps you present consist of prevent conflicts and it helps you deliver the project on time and on to budget.
Show involve your stakeholders.
Early try and be transparent about the process.
Consistently communicate to foster their buy in and support for the project.
Success.
Don't think that you are overdoing it and people have got very short attention spans.
And the crap through the noise.
You need to be consistent, so I would be more concerned about people in my team giving different messages about the project rather than repeating 6,7,8 times the same messages through different communication channels.
So tool number 4.
Angeliki Stogia 38:09
Considering the diversity of your stakeholders, someone is running with a presentation, so you hold your horses and so and even after you have mapped your groups and you have used the matrix and you have 4 distinct groups of stakeholders, even within those groups there is tremendous diversity.
So what I've got here is the demographic diversity.
So consider the inclusivity of various groups in the project and the initiative.
Recognize and address the different needs of the demographic groups such as age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status.
I think that most of you already should be on this, and so this ensures that all community members are regardless of their background, they have equal opportunities to have their voices listen, but also to feel heard.
So in short, in the engagement methods that you're planning are accessible to all demographics.
And now I'm also talking about the, you know, geographical and diversity.
So you know, this might include, for example, engaging with older people.
There may be more agreeable to attending any events in the local community in the local surroundings if venue that they know and they have been to maybe would be more likely to attend during daytime rather than having to travel off to the town hall in an evening which might shoot better.
Those who work near the town hall and can drop in, for example, after work.
So another example on this is you know that you are not going to be engaging with politicians in April when this elections in May.
So it's, you know, the same way.
Consider your stakeholders.
Consider where it's best to catch them and also what works for them.
And you know, like and someone has said in the chat, if you can do be creative, there's a lot of examples and a lot of local authorities are doing brilliant things on the ground, working with their communities.
And finally, I think you know, get to know your groups not as a monolithic and a mass of people.
And that serious ways also that people learn that listen and that communicate back and think about the different roles, the different interests, and also how this project, how this program might impact them.
So acknowledge that they have different and varying levels of influence in the project.
They might be interested at it as a resident, they might be interested as a resident who lives in the world or in the geographical area, but also works for a volunteering.
I mean sector organization or someone who is sole trader and runs a business.
So the key message here is even if you map out understand the reason diversity on how you communicate with stakeholders and consider their needs and tailor your engagement strategies to be inclusive and accessible.
And ensure that everybody's house got a fair chance to take part in the what you're trying to do.
And show final two before we get into a discussion, we will soon be turning the tables and asking you what are your challenges and in your engagement is something's that's people often try or, but people often who have very, very busy especially and don't pay much attention to and if there is one thing that you wanted to take away he he's a very very important to track to monitor and to report and all that local authorities have been through lots of rounds of restructuring redundancies people moving around working with consultants it is ever so much more.
Important or secondments and all of that.
It is so important to track, monitor and report engagement activity, so if one of the goals in the process is and should be to strengthen the stakeholder relationships just across the boards and letting everybody know what's happening and what is going on and the more you record what you are doing, so you know that we have met with this team, this is what they have said.
These are the follow up actions so that when somebody else picks up the project, they know what is going on, but it is also very helpful to have a nodded and take stock and see where you are and it is also gets you if you like, in the culture of engagement and it makes your practice better when you record where you are, where you want to go, who you have heard from, where they have said, and then also it is also very important, important for this FY that some people every now and then receive so the.
Key message here and we can give you this tool if if you think that it is useful, we can give you various forms of their spreadsheets.
But the key methods in this slide is to build strong stakeholder relationship.
It is crucial to track monitoring ports on your engagement efforts, ensuring that there is transparency throughout the process.
This transparency will help you mitigate the risks, like misalignments, flush it fosters that culture of involvement, which is key to success of any strategic regeneration process.
So we spoke about the five tools, who the stakeholders are mapping them, engaging with them all the way and continuously and and then considering the diversity of stakeholders tracking, monitoring and reporting.
Angeliki Stogia 44:10
And if you want to move to the next slide and I'm going to hand back. No, I'm not handing back.
Actually, Ellen, I am doing this exercise, aren't I?
And so we're going to discuss about your challenges now and we have another mentee and question.
So if you go back to and if you do have your mentee in your device, there will be a question that comes up.
What are the engagement challenges that you face in your project?
So what we wanted to do is if you reflect on your own and if you drop down the challenges that you face, I think you've got 250 characters, and if you can give us a flavour, we're going to stop recording now because we're getting into the conversation.
So we don't want this.
We don't want everybody to see this and we want you to freely tell us and what is your challenge and then we're going to ask you and potentially to expand on the challenge.
If it's not politics, it's always a challenge and we are going to ask you to expand on the challenge and then we have got an exercise on the mentee where we ask you to prioritize a few areas that we have groups together and in order for us to hold potentially workshops or create guides in the future on what is important to you.
So there's one thing me sort of asking myself and thinking ohh wouldn't it be great to do a stakeholder workshop, but I want stakeholder identification.
Workshop.
If this is not what you want me to do, just tell me where is the best and where is where.
What is your challenge so that we can test and?
Creates resources and tailor uh.
Future webinars on what?
We can help you with and focus specific time on that.
OK, so we've got 32 people and 1234 responses.
So you know, please get writing and.
So what we've got so far.
In in my bowling alley paradox, if you ask people that they will what they want to say, what they remember for decades ago not, but may be viable, is a very good challenge and there's a really good challenge.
I think this is this is something that many of our clients are facing with regards to engagement.
You know, we always said that we're going to do this and now nothing is happening and you haven't done anything or this project is tinkering with the edges and not solving the problem.
People not understanding.
Also, funding in the Councils and what are the challenges?
But also I think another challenges I am talking out loud to giving you time to put responses.
OK, I think the other challenge that we are coming across with clients is and so you're cutting adult health and social care, but you're building this really nice building.
And why don't you spending on homelessness and?
So it is about how do you engage?
How do you communicate?
How do you make sure that you have a consistent narrative, and how does your project fit with the COM team overarching narrative around spending and resources around funding caps and around investing in your local authority area?
So what have we got?
Let me just say I I think I've waffled a lot.
I'm going to start the responding or reading out now from your responses.
So we've got the politic.
Together, potentially with weak governance structures, which is a a challenge, lack of internal resources and expertise, and.
Which is also important.
Funding timescales or so pressure to deliver I guess, and thinking about where engagement fits within that because engagement does take time.
Prominent stakeholders oppose project due to vested interest.
I would like to hear more about this if someone is brave enough to tell me a little bit on how we can help with that.
I wonder now, Ellen, you can please feel free to come in.
And I wonder what lends itself into how we group together something that can be a workshop.
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 49:26
Yeah.
Angeliki Stogia 49:34
So you know, step back in a little bit more generic and then we'll eventually we could offer or we can have follow up discussions regarding a specific bespoke project.
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 49:35
Umm.
Angeliki Stogia 49:48
Can you Scroll down and the a little so we can see a little bit more?
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 49:49
Yeah.
I'd be interested to hear a little bit more about the weak governance structures point, if whoever put that would be willing to speak up.
I guess my question is what do you mean a lack of decision making within the Council or or weak governance structures that are therefore sort of impacting the ability to consult or?
Angeliki Stogia 50:15
Or is it weak governance structures within the project?
So who is responsible, especially if it's a multi stakeholder project?
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 50:21
Yeah.
Angeliki Stogia 50:25
Who is responsible for engagement?
How do we all speak with one voice and how do we listen to feedback and incorporate it into the project and present it to the project board?
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 50:31
Yeah.
Angeliki Stogia 50:39
It could be that.
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 50:40
Yeah.
Angeliki Stogia 50:43
Please put your hand up or use the chat function.
Sanderson-Clark, Ellen 50:49
Or we'll pick up separately if need be.
OK.
Angeliki Stogia 50:52
Or pick up separately with Attendee 1.
Attendee 1 51:01
Yeah.
So mine was the vested interest, one the very beginning.
I can't really say too much about this anyway, but we have some very loud and prominent businessmen and who opposed the scheme that we're doing because parts of it will directly compete with their business interests.
Angeliki Stogia 51:09
OK.
About the speakers
Angeliki Stogia is an advisory associate passionate about stakeholder engagement and communications. She helps clients develop policies and mobilise stakeholders to create successful cities and towns. Her experience spans infrastructure projects, including regeneration, energy, transport and water, where she promotes early engagement and builds effective strategies. Through her work, she builds project advocacy, enhances reputation, manages risk, and ultimately supports better client outcomes.
Ellen Sanderson-Clark has over 10 years experience working in regional towns and cities providing strategic real estate advice on regeneration projects. As a town planning consultant by background, she helps clients navigate and overcome challenges to their projects to secure deliverable strategies, regeneration frameworks and planning consents for major and complex projects.
