Community Consultation for Developers: A Guide | LandTech

What Is Community Consultation?

In planning, community consultation means inviting the public to respond to a new policy, plan, or development proposal, so their views can help shape the outcome. Public consultation is the same thing by another name, and you'll see the two used interchangeably.

Consultations are run at every level. Developers consult on their own schemes before submitting a planning application. Local authorities consult on local plans and on the applications they receive. And national government consults on policy and legislation, such as the 2023 consultation on permitted development rights that LandTech responded to on behalf of its customers.

Responses can be gathered at in-person events, through written feedback, or online, and most well-run consultations now use a mix of all three.

What Topics Do Community Consultations Cover?

In planning and development, consultations commonly cover:

• Policy communications and white papers
• Proposals for legislation or regulation
• The preparation of local plans
• Specific development projects

When Is Community Consultation Expected?

There are three moments when consultation matters most for developers: before you submit a major application, after you submit any application, and while the local plan is being prepared.

Before You Apply: NPPF 2026 Policy DM1

For major development, early engagement is now spelled out in national planning policy. Policy DM1(1) of the NPPF 2026 says proposals for major development should:

"Be informed by early engagement with neighbours and the local community, as well as with the local planning authority, statutory consultees, infrastructure providers, registered providers of social housing and other relevant bodies where appropriate, to identify and seek to resolve key planning matters prior to the submission of a planning application."

That engagement should be proportionate to the proposal and those likely to be affected by it. The application should also come with a concise planning statement setting out, among other things:

"The outcome of pre-application engagement and the extent to which the proposal has changed in response to this engagement."

For smaller schemes, DM1(2) adds: "Pre-application engagement may also be required where proposals raise complex planning matters, such as the potential effect on heritage assets."

To be clear, DM1 is national planning policy, not a statute. There's no legal duty to consult under it. But the NPPF carries weight in every decision, and policy DM3 tells councils to take account of planning matters raised during pre-application engagement, including positive responses. Skipping it, or doing it badly, leaves a gap in your application that officers and objectors will notice.

After You Apply: Statutory Publicity

Once an application is submitted, the council runs its own consultation, set out in regulations. GOV.UK's guidance on consultation and pre-decision matters summarises the minimum requirements. For major development, that means a site notice or neighbour notification letters, a newspaper advertisement, and publication on the council's website. The period for comments is normally not less than 21 days, or 14 days where a notice is published in a newspaper. Many councils go further, as set out in their Statement of Community Involvement.

During Plan-Making: Local Plans

Councils also consult as they prepare local plans, and those plans now run to a fixed clock. Policy PM2(2) of the NPPF 2026 says: "Local plans should be prepared and adopted within 30 months of publishing a Gateway 1 self-assessment."

Are Community Consultations Always What They Seem?

It's easy to take consultation responses at face value, especially when lots of people have taken part. But big numbers can hide how few people are really being heard.

One Local Plan consultation attracted more than 900 responses. That sounds substantial, until you consider that the plan would shape the whole area for the next 15 years, and that those 900 people made up around 0.1% of the population. That's hardly a sign of meaningful engagement.

The numbers seem impressive, but only a small share of the people living in the local planning authority area actually responded. The views of the silent majority, the people who aren't strongly for or against, go largely unrecorded.

It's also worth remembering who tends to respond. People with more time and money on their hands are typically over-represented in consultations, while people juggling work and family commitments are easily missed. Looking at the demographics of an area can show you whose voices are likely to be missing. LandInsight's demographics data breaks down age groups, household composition, and income, so you can compare who lives in an area with who's actually responding.

Until consultations broaden both the questions they ask and the range of people they reach, treat the results with care, and use your judgement about how much they really tell you about the community you're building for.

Community Consultation Methods

There's no single best way to consult. Each of the main community consultation methods reaches a different slice of the community, which is exactly why relying on one of them tends to reproduce the silent majority problem.

In practice, the strongest community consultation techniques combine all three. A few community consultation examples:

• A drop-in session at the local community centre, with QR codes on display boards linking to an online survey for people who'd rather respond later.
• A leaflet drop to every home around the site, pointing to a project website with an interactive map and a short feedback form.
• A virtual exhibition running alongside a workshop with residents' associations, so detailed discussion and wider reach happen at the same time.

The gap between methods can be significant. In one project run on Give My View, 81% of community members said they hadn't attended the in-person events for a new planning application, with lack of awareness and work commitments among the main reasons. Our full comparison of traditional and digital consultation methods goes into this in more detail.

How to Plan a Community Consultation

A good community consultation plan doesn't need to be long, but it should be written down before any leaflets go out. It keeps the process focused, and it makes reporting much easier at the end.

1. Set your objectives. Decide what you need to learn and what's genuinely still open to change. If the layout is fixed but the open space isn't, consult on the open space.
2. Identify your audiences. Neighbours, the wider community, ward councillors, parish or town councils, local groups, and harder-to-reach residents. Check the area's demographics so you know who you need to make an extra effort to reach.
3. Choose your methods. Pick a mix that reaches each audience, using the strengths and weaknesses above.
4. Fix your timing. Consult early enough for feedback to shape the scheme, and allow time to respond to what you hear before you submit. Check the council's Statement of Community Involvement for any local expectations.
5. Plan how you'll record and report feedback. Decide upfront how you'll log responses, analyse them, and show what changed. Under DM1, that's what your planning statement will need to set out.

Community Consultation Questions: Good vs Leading

The questions you ask shape the answers you get. Leading questions might produce a reassuring headline, but they won't survive scrutiny from officers or objectors. Good community consultation questions are neutral, ask about one thing at a time, and use plain English.

A few more tips: mix closed questions (easy to count) with open ones (rich detail), keep surveys short, and ask optional demographic questions such as age band and postcode, so you can check how representative your responses are.

How to Engage With Community Consultations

Developers aren't only the ones running consultations. You'll also want to respond to them, particularly on local plans and national policy, where your input can shape the rules your future sites will be judged against. It's a case of deciding which consultations are worth your time. Our guide on how to engage with local government as a developer covers where to focus, and our look at the role councillors play in planning decisions explains why those relationships matter.

When you're reading responses to your own consultation, or to an application near your site, think about how much weight each one should carry. Are the views representative of the community as a whole? And are the issues raised genuine planning matters or material considerations? People often say a scheme will spoil their view or reduce the value of their home, but those claims are unlikely to carry weight in a planning decision.

Unlock More Insights in the Real Developer Podcast

In series 3, episode 2 of the Real Developer podcast, host Alex Harrington-Griffin is joined by Harry Quartermain of LandTech, Julian Seymour of Cratus, and Harry Keen of London Green to explore public consultation and the role of politics in local plan-making.

Listen now | Watch now

Digital Consultation With Give My View

Asking the public to read long, dense documents and write a formal response puts most people off. LandTech's Give My View takes a different approach, using short surveys, interactive maps, and gamified feedback to draw targeted opinions from people who would otherwise never respond to a consultation.

That matters on two fronts. First, reach: because people can take part on their phone, at any time, and in multiple languages, you hear from a wider cross-section of the community, not just the people who can make a Tuesday evening exhibition. Second, evidence: real-time dashboards turn responses into clear, quantified data on local priorities and sentiment, which is exactly what your planning statement needs to show under DM1.

Digital tools aren't a replacement for talking to people face to face, though. Some residents, particularly older people, still prefer traditional formats, so the most effective consultations take a multi-format approach, with Give My View running alongside in-person and written methods to reach as many people as possible.

Reach the silent majority and evidence your engagement. See how Give My View supports community consultation.

FAQs

What is community consultation?

Community consultation is the process of inviting the public to give their views on a policy, plan, or development proposal before a decision is made. In planning, it's run by developers before they apply, by councils on applications and local plans, and by national government on policy and legislation.

Is community consultation a legal requirement?

For major development, pre-application engagement is expected by national planning policy (NPPF 2026 policy DM1) rather than required by law. It carries weight in decisions, and the planning statement should explain what came out of it. Statutory publicity of planning applications is separate: councils are legally required to publicise applications before deciding them.

How long does a consultation last?

For the council's consultation on a planning application, GOV.UK guidance says the period for comments will be not less than 21 days, or 14 days where a notice is published in a newspaper. There's no fixed length for a developer's pre-application engagement. It should be proportionate to the scheme, and long enough for feedback to shape the proposals.

How do you report consultation feedback?

Under DM1, the planning statement for major development should set out the outcome of pre-application engagement and how the proposal changed in response. Many applicants also submit a fuller consultation report or Statement of Community Involvement, summarising who was consulted, what they said, and how the scheme responded.

Related Reading

• Comparing Traditional Consultation Methods With Digital Community Engagement on Give My View
• Strengthening Local Plan Engagement in an Era of AI Objection
• The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), Explained
• How to Engage With Local Government as a Developer
• How to Read a Local Plan: A Practical Guide for Developers