Don’t Underestimate the Public Interest
Deetu was approached to help with the redevelopment of a former RAF base in the north of England. The site has been allocated for some years but was delayed due to the creation of a local authority design code, which has now been adopted. Following the adoption, our client wanted to restart the planning process. After many years of delays on the site we advised an early engagement exercise to reintroduce the site and gather insights ahead of a full consultation in 2026. 
Alamein Barracks historical image: Report of the airshow at RAF Driffield, 18 Sept 1954
The site is brownfield, on the edge of a small town and would deliver several hundred homes. Given the early stage of masterplan evolution, there was little detail available to share. Nothing immediately remarkable, other than its former use as an RAF base.
Engagement is not just for the sites that you think will be controversial. Public interest in a site can be strong even if the principle of development is accepted. Light-touch, early (and affordable) engagement presents an opportunity to build relationships with the community and gather valuable opinions. A full public consultation with thousands of leaflets, in-person events and lots of detail is not always needed.
We conducted a light-touch engagement, designed to gather insights on what locals thought about the redevelopment, examine the community’s feelings on previous plans and to gather memories of the site. The local community blew us away. The interest they expressed for the site was astonishing and so were some of the stories that were shared with us, including one love story that had a nighttime plane crash over Germany, daring escapes, and an unlikely reunion half the world away in Australia!
- We received over 400 responses, equal to almost 20 hours of feedback time from respondents.
- Another 131 hours were spent reading our materials on the website.
- We used social media to communicate the engagement and reached over 20,000 people in the local area.
Alamein Barracks historical image: De Havilland DH-4 bi-plane after crashing at Driffield, 11 Nov 1919
Our approach reset the relationship between our client and the local community, converting them from tired and frustrated into excited and interested.
We have been able to collect important data that will inform the developing masterplan and help understand what will be important to consider in the design. This has laid the foundations for a successful pre-application consultation in the future.
If you have a site at an early stage and want to find out what the public think about it, get in touch!
