The importance of early socio-economic advice
Too many projects face delays or objections because they don’t align with community needs early. Here’s how we can help you avoid that risk and deliver real value from day one.
Why engage early?
Early socio-economic advice (at RIBA stages 0 or 1) reduces planning risks, secures community support, and builds a strong justification for approval. Delayed engagement often results in fragmented or less compelling project narratives, missed opportunities, and challenges at the planning stage.
Our early-stage advisory approach
| Step | How | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Develop a socio-economic vision | Creating a cohesive strategy that integrates socio-economic objectives into your overall development plan. | In Cambridge, we created a vision focused on supporting start-ups, delivering affordable workspace, flexible leases, local hiring initiatives, and venture capital opportunities, directly aligned with community aspirations. |
| 2. Understand local priorities | Conducting baseline assessments to uncover local issues and opportunities. | In Westminster, despite a strong overall economy, we identified pockets of significant deprivation, high child poverty, and health inequalities. Using this insight, we developed socio-economic strategies that focused on improving access to opportunities, addressing inequalities, and supporting local residents’ wellbeing. |
| 3. Review local evidence | Analysing local and regional data and policies to align developments with evidenced local needs. | Our assessment of housing and employment needs successfully positioned a mixed-use Cambridge project to meet identified local demand. |
| 4. Integrate community and social infrastructure | Mapping local infrastructure needs, such as health, education, and leisure, to ensure developments deliver tangible community benefits. | For a London estate regeneration, we profiled population growth to precisely phase the delivery of an early years education facility, ensuring community infrastructure matched demand. |
| 5. Define social impact strategy | Developing meaningful social value strategies through partnerships with local stakeholders. | In Tower Hamlets, collaboration with Bangladeshi community groups and local schools improved career education outcomes, addressing specific local challenges. |
| 6. Quantify headline economic and social impacts | Providing robust quantitative analysis of developments' broader economic and social contributions. | We regularly estimate economic impacts such as construction and operational jobs, local spending, gross value added, and tax contributions, alongside social impacts on wellbeing, skills, and housing affordability. These estimates are contextualised within the local economy and presented during pre-application discussions and consultations to clearly communicate the development’s benefits. |
