CCQOL is a map-based model of community consultation. We believe that creating maps of local assets is a good way to involve the local community in the co-development of local knowledge, which can help make arguments for future improvements and development.

 

CCQOL builds on the University of Reading’s Mapping Eco Social Assets project, and will ask the local population to help create maps of their area, both in community spaces and online. The project will reference the Quality of Life Framework as a way of identifying aspects of an area that are important to their health and wellbeing. Information gathered will help to define social value, a term used to describe what happens when buildings, places and infrastructure support environmental, economic and social wellbeing, and in doing so improve people’s quality of life.

Why Community Consultation?

The purpose of community consultation is to give people a sense of influence and control over their environment, which is a key determinant of their overall quality of life. With CCQOL, we want to start a conversation about what local communities value and need in their local area, one which is:

    • map-based, so rooted in their environment;
    • takes place both online and face-to-face;
    • and can continue over time

Our hope is that the project facilitates greater inclusion across the community and provides a more accurate picture than the current consultation process. And we believe that it can go some way to joining up consultation activity around Local Development Planning, which is key to the Government’s changes to the planning system, as well as Planning Consultations and the post-occupancy evaluation of places.

Methodology

CCQOL is founded on the principle that good projects create and balance social value, environmental value and economic value. Quality of Life here refers to ‘social value’. The project – the development and successive piloting of physical and digital formats for inclusive community consultation on four ‘live’ planning proposals, one in each country of the UK – will be in five stages and will be accompanied by an extensive publicity programme to encourage engagement. Each pilot will have its own Local Advisory Group (LAG) consisting of a variety of local stakeholders (with a majority from the community) organised by a local Community Partnerships Manager (CPM) and chaired by the local Community Outreach Leads (CoI).

1. Contextual review of the current state of planning consultation (months 0-6), developed with CACHE:

  • A literature review of current practice.
  • Expert interviews
  • Expert debates organised by the Quality of Life Foundation.
  • Taxonomy of Community Consultation
  • Policy-facing reports

2. Design of interconnected physical and digital formats for inclusive Community Consultation

3. Develop and agree format for collecting Community Consultation data and feedback on the pilots to enable evaluation and comparison across sites:

4. Piloting of physical and digital consultations on projects in N. Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England using methodologies agreed in Phase 2.

5. Finalise formats, Outputs and planning the future of CCQoL (months 18-24)

Research Questions

1. How can community consultation be made more useful and effective across the diverse policy contexts of the UK?

2. How can community consultation be made more representative and inclusive?

3. How can community consultation be undertaken for areas that have not yet been developed, when ‘future users’ are not known?

4. What are the relative benefits of online and physical community consultation? What format could community consultation take in a pandemic?

4. How can community consultation be made into a long-term project that fosters ongoing civic debate?

5. How can social value mapping inform the process of community consultation?

6. What terminology is needed to describe inclusive, empowering 21st century community consultation?

People

University of Reading (Principal Investigator)

Flora Samuel

Flora is a Professor at the University of Reading. The author of Why Architects Matter (2018) she has been awarded over £2million of research funding to investigate the positive impact of good design on people and to forward the case for research in practice...

Flora is a Professor at the University of Reading. The author of Why Architects Matter (2018) she has been awarded over £2million of research funding to investigate the positive impact of good design on people and to forward the case for research in practice. She was the first RIBA Vice President for Research and is lead author of the Social Value Toolkit for Architects (RIBA, 2020) and an industry expert on social value. Her project Mapping Eco Social Assets won the RIBA President’s Award for Research: Cities and Communities.

John Brennan

John Brennan is an academic and practicing architect with 25 years’ experience of researching and delivering sustainable architecture.

John Brennan is an academic and practicing architect with 25 years’ experience of researching and delivering sustainable architecture. He established and is programme director of the University of Edinburgh Masters programme in Advanced Sustainable Design. He has been an external examiner at the Universities of Nottingham and Sheffield and recently the Centre for Alternative Technology. John has published research in creating sustainable communities both in the UK and southern Asia and has worked with students and communities on participative planning projects in Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders.
Urban Symbiotics

Stephanie Edwards

Stephanie Edwards is an Architect, Urbanist and Cofounder of Urban Symbiotics – an insight and research led multi-disciplinary design practice that focuses on the user experience to innovate architecture...

Stephanie Edwards is an Architect, Urbanist and Cofounder of Urban Symbiotics – an insight and research led multi-disciplinary design practice that focuses on the user experience to innovate architecture, masterplanning and the public realm. Urban Symbiotics have been recognised by the Design Museum and the London Festival of Architecture as a practice for their ‘architecture for a new generation’ whilst also being nominated for a h100 architecture and design award. She continues to focus on delivering social value through a variety of project types and scales to facilitate the building of inclusive, equitable and progressive communities.
Community Partnerships Manager (Reading)

Unis Nisa

Unis Nisa is a Dentist and an International Public Health professional. She was formerly the Director of Mojosongo Group Hospital under Barokah Foundation in Indonesia...

Unis Nisa is a Dentist and an International Public Health professional. She was formerly the Director of Mojosongo Group Hospital under Barokah Foundation in Indonesia, a private organisation delivering health services through five community hospitals. With over 20 years’ experience in community engagement and consultations, she believes the focus should be on ensuring that inclusivity, diversity, empowerment of the public and their wellbeing are firmly at the centre of community focussed change projects. This guarantees the sustainability of the initiatives once the project has ended. She will continue to advocate for these in every project she involves in.
Researcher

Hani Salih

Hani implements the Quality of Life Foundation's resident review, evaluating health and wellbeing in housing and neighbourhoods, as well as facilitating our CCQOL research project - both active in locations across the UK.

Hani implements the Quality of Life Foundation's resident review, evaluating health and wellbeing in housing and neighbourhoods, as well as facilitating our CCQOL research project - both active in locations across the UK. Fresh from conducting his postgraduate studies at the The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Hani brings with him a wealth of academic experience, having completed his MSc in the Urbanisation and Development programme which tackles theoretical and critical qualitative analysis from a global perspective.
Community Partnerships Manager (Edinburgh)

Irina Tavera

Irina Tavera is the Community Partnership Manager for the CCQOL Edinburgh pilot project. She wishes to engage and learn from community representatives...

Irina Tavera is the Community Partnership Manager for the CCQOL Edinburgh pilot project. She wishes to engage and learn from community representatives to support a reimagining of the community consultation process in Edinburgh.

Irina is currently developing relationships with various stakeholders to learn from those who have a demonstrable history of successful community engagement throughout Edinburgh. She is eager to learn how to navigate various power structures in the city with the intention of crafting accessible paths of influence for those who have often been left out of decision making conversations.

University of Reading

Prof. Lorraine Farrelly

Lorraine is an Architect and Head of Architecture and Foundation Professor in Architecture at the University of Reading where she has set up the new School of Architecture...

Lorraine is an Architect and Head of Architecture and Foundation Professor in Architecture at the University of Reading where she has set up the new School of Architecture. This is a School which has developed a teaching approach with an agenda informed by contemporary research in Urban Living, Regeneration of urban environments and quality of placemaking . She is a qualified architect and has worked regionally on a range of architecture and master-planning projects. She regularly chairs design review across the south and south coast, commenting and advising on design quality for architecture, master-planning and urban design strategic design projects.

Dr Saul Golden

Dr Saul M Golden RIBA, SFHEA, is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture & Spatial Design at Ulster University’s Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment, with over 25 years of international practice...

Dr Saul M Golden RIBA, SFHEA, is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture & Spatial Design at Ulster University’s Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment, with over 25 years of international practice, teaching and research experience. He is a Visiting Academic with the Bamford Centre for Mental Health & Wellbeing, and PI for Belfast.THRI(VES), a 2021 Department for Communities-NI funded urban-health and wellbeing research partnership with Belfast City Council and the Department for Infrastructure-NI. In 2016, he established the collaborative Urban Research Lab, leading and publishing on projects applying transdisciplinary research and performative public-engagement tactics to shape and co-construct meaning in shared urban spaces.
Director, Quality of Life Foundation

Matthew Morgan

Matthew is the Director of the Quality of Life Foundation. With over 20 years' experience in writing and communications...

Matthew is the Director of the Quality of Life Foundation. With over 20 years' experience in writing and communications, Matthew's role is to foster greater understanding and cooperation between local people, the built environment industry and government. He is particularly interested in how communities are formed and how to help them thrive.
Co-Founder, Commonplace

Dr David Janner-Klausner

David is Co-founder and Director of Customer Success at Commonplace. David is a career-long urbanist who got interested in how cities function as a teenager growing up in Jerusalem – probably one of the world’s most interesting cities. David has established a variety of initiatives in the field – including a...

David is Co-founder and Director of Customer Success at Commonplace. David is a career-long urbanist who got interested in how cities function as a teenager growing up in Jerusalem – probably one of the world’s most interesting cities. David has established a variety of initiatives in the field – including a network of Municipal Strategic Planning Units; a training programme for executive mayors; an NGO campaigning for sustainable transport (all in Israel). In the UK he set up a Good Practice Unit at Transport 2000 (now the Campaign for Better Transport) and a carbon trading initiative during a stint at the Local Government Information Unit. He was founding chair (for six years) of The Bike Project, a charity supporting refugees and asylum-seekers. Immediately prior to joining Commonplace in 2013, he worked for six years as senior professional in the Jewish community.
David’s academic background is in Urban Studies (BA, Sussex); Geography and Economics (PhD, LSE), and Sustainable Architecture (MSc, The Centre for Alternative Technology). He taught as a Guest Lecturer for a decade at the Hebrew University and has been a Visiting Fellow at MIT’s Department for Urban Studies and Planning. David is passionate about making places work for the people who live in them and about innovative ways to engage communities.
Community Partnerships Manager (Cardiff)

Mymuna Soleman

Mymuna is a Somali-Welsh graduate from Cardiff Metropolitan University completing both her degrees, a BSc in Health and Social Care and an MSc in Applied Public...

Mymuna is a Somali-Welsh graduate from Cardiff Metropolitan University completing both her degrees, a BSc in Health and Social Care and an MSc in Applied Public Health in 2014 and 2016. Mymuna is an activist, a poet and community champion for all issues relating to equality, diversity, race and white privilege and how people can use their privilege for good.

More recently, Mymuna founded the Privilege Café, an important and timely virtual space founded and grounded on the back of creating a safe space where voices that have been marginalised and othered for so long were now welcomed and included, respected, and listened to. Mymuna has hosted a number of successful virtual sessions since starting the Café in 2020 attracting over 5,000 people and has covered a wide range of topics with the focus of uplifting marginalised voices.

She has a huge passion for community engagement, empowering community voices, but most importantly ensuring that authentic relationships are created with policy makers to influence positive change. Mymuna hopes that this role will enable her to transfer her the skills she has gained in community engagement and to build positive meaningful relationships and connections between communities and decision makers.

Research Assistant

Dr Ruchit Purohit

Ruchit is an architect, urban designer and development practitioner. He has previously worked and researched on projects ranging from community-led regeneration, community led-heritage and community-led design.

Ruchit is an architect, urban designer and development practitioner. He has previously worked and researched on projects ranging from community-led regeneration, community led-heritage and community-led design. Areas of interest include the critical analysis of the current understandings of Heritage; participatory decision-making; and tools for participation such as codesign and coproduction; transdisciplinary research in the built environment; and urban commons. Ruchit graduated with a PhD in Design Research Planning from Kingston University London; a Masters degree from the University College London in Development Planning: Building and Urban Design in Development; and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Mumbai.
Reader in the Welsh School of Architecture (WSA)

Dr Mhairi McVicar

Dr Mhairi McVicar is a Reader in the Welsh School of Architecture (WSA), and Academic Lead of Cardiff University’s Community Gateway...

Dr Mhairi McVicar is a Reader in the Welsh School of Architecture (WSA), and Academic Lead of Cardiff University’s Community Gateway, a platform collaborating with individuals and organisations in Grangetown, Cardiff on partnership projects including the redevelopment of the community-owned Grange Pavilion. She is Chair of the Master of Architecture Year 2 at WSA and leads the Value Unit. Mhairi’s research and teaching explores processes of architectural practice, relationships between architects and stakeholders in the built environment, and the role of the architect in community development.
CEO, Commonplace

Mike Saunders

Mike is the CEO and Co-Founder of Commonplace, an online community engagement tool that promotes trust between residents, property developers and local government.

I co-founded Commonplace, a digital tool for neighbourhoods and property developers. We help neighbourhoods understand and act on their needs, and property developers reduce their planning risk and costs. Commonplace is funded by Bethnal Green Ventures and Nominet Trust.
Chair, Quality of Life Foundation

Prof. Sadie Morgan OBE

Sadie Morgan is Chair of the Quality of Life Foundation and a founding director of Stirling Prize-winning architecture practice dRMM.

I am involved in a number of advisory roles, including chairing the Independent Design Panel for High Speed Two and being one of ten commissioners for the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC). I have been instrumental in setting up the NIC’s Design Group and in 2017 was chosen as a Mayor’s design advocate for the Greater London Authority and became a non-executive director of the Major Project Association. Most recently I was appointed as a non-executive director of U+I and as a member to the Homes England board, the UK government’s housing accelerator.
Community Partnerships Specialist (Belfast)

Dr Anna Skoura

Working within the Ulster University CCQOL team, Anna is delivering Belfast’s Urban Room and pilot consultation events with project co-investigator Dr Saul Golden.

Anna is a passionate advocate of the democratisation of heritage and planning processes, developing ways to promote inclusivity in decision making around the built environment.

Since 2012, Anna has worked in Architecture education in Queen’s University Belfast and recently completed her PhD in Architecture developing multi-disciplinary methodologies of mapping and evaluating urban heritage. She has been involved in consultation projects with local communities, combining architectural and anthropological methods to highlight the connections between people and places in space and time.

Her career includes positions in architectural practices on conservation and retrofit projects. She has worked for charities and not-for profit organisations advocating for a better and more equitable built environment through architectural, heritage and urban focused projects.

Advisory Group

Chair
Sadie Morgan
dRMM

Ian Harvey
Civic Voice

Max Farrell
London Collective

Martyn Evans
U+I

Euan Mills
DLUHC Digital

Richard Blyth
RTPI

Claire Jamieson
Public Practice

Eleanor Boyce
UKGBC

Jennifer Thomas
DLUHC

Alex Green
Iceni Projects

Vidhya Alakeson
Power to Change

Erin Walsh
Connected Places Catapult

Partners