Public consultation gives people an opportunity to help shape the places where they live and work. Its value depends on asking relevant questions, providing accessible ways to contribute and interpreting the responses carefully.

Delve Research helps public bodies design and deliver consultations that provide clear evidence for planning and decision-making.

We can support the full consultation process or contribute at any individual stage, from questionnaire design and fieldwork to analysis and reporting.

Designing the consultation

Our work begins with understanding the decisions the consultation needs to inform. We develop questionnaires in collaboration with client teams, translating their information needs into questions that people can understand and answer.

Depending on the project, participation can include online surveys, on-street interviews and paper questionnaires, providing different ways for people to contribute.

Reaching people in different ways

For a major city-centre public realm proposal, Delve designed an on-street consultation and worked with local fieldwork partners to gather public views. Supporting photography and video interviews complemented a detailed report prepared to inform the local authority’s planning considerations.

More recently, we supported community safety consultations across local authority administrative areas. Working with local coordinators, we developed the questionnaire, hosted the survey on Qualtrics and provided a way to capture vox pop interviews and paper responses alongside online submissions.

Making the findings useful locally

The community safety consultations gathered nearly 4,000 responses. Detailed analysis examined the findings for each of the five areas, providing local evidence to inform the development of Community Safety Plans.

Across this work, our role is to turn a substantial body of public feedback into clear findings, helping client teams understand the concerns, experiences and priorities expressed by those who participated.

Discuss your consultation

Planning a public consultation or looking for support with analysis and reporting? Get in touch to discuss how Delve Research could help.