Social Media and the LDF - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Hi, I am afraid I don't have an answer for you but I wanted to elevate this question back to the top of the board as I think this may be an issue for our Council quite soon. You mention case studies and examples for social media on the PAS site - could you direct me to where these are? Thanks

nice bump Michael. Trafford case study is here: http://www.pas.gov.uk/pas/core/page.do?pageId=109724 and there is another thread here: http://www.pas.gov.uk/pas/forum/thread-maint.do?topicId=101360 Cheers, John.

Thank you for bumping this issue back to the top Michael. John has kindly posted the link to the PAS example I was referring to (Trafford). Since posting my request I have discovered examples of how Social Media is being used in relation to Planning and more widely in Local Goverment. Bristol have a strong brand, they also have a blog called 'Ask Bristol' and have used Cherish or Change a map based website which allowed users to post smileys or frownies to indicate what they value or want to change in their communities. http://askbristol.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/central-area/ Imagine Croydon/Croydon 2040 have used a wiki style website which allows members of the community to blog, upload videos and photos. They also have a planning blog 'Croydon Spatial Planning' which is the second link below. http://www.imaginecroydon.com/imagine/ http://lbcspatialplanning.wordpress.com/ The Social Media and Online Collaboration Community on Communities of Practice (CoP) is also very useful. If your a member of CoPalready just search for by the community name and join. If you haven't used CoP follow the link below. http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/welcome.do I hope this helps.

If your planning portal is based on a CMS/Forum/Blog system you should be able to facebook and tweek out news 'posts' automatically if the consultation registration system collates these. Lots of resources on the web about this - try googling for how to use social media to drive traffic to your blog.

Thankyou all for your links and views. One of the things that concerns me with this is that many of the authorities that have created a Facebook page e.g Trafford, a Twitter page e.g. Sunderland or a blog e.g. Bristol and Croydon, have done so with much enthusiasm and good intentions, although there is little or no interest from the public and other bodies in most cases. Many of the sites have seen little activity for months either because it has been unsuccessful or, as is the nature of planmaking, there was a flurry of posts trying to generate opinion on a consultation which is then followed by downtime when there is nothing to say - this begs the question whether the world of social media is the right arena for LDFs to operate in. I therefore re-ask Richard Overy's question original question - are there any best practice examples out there? Has any authority managed to create a site/page on any of the above mediums or any others which has managed to generate and maintain interest throughout the process?

Thank you for raising this issue again Michael. One example I forgot to mention although not planning specific was Wisbech and Villages Shape Your Place. http://wisbech.shapeyourplace.org/ This community site was part funded by DCLG and is a partnership arrangement between Cambridgeshire County Council, Fenland District Council, the Police, Fire & Rescue and is adminstered by volunteers from a local charity. Successful Social Media is often immediate, something which doesn't spring to mind when thinking about LDF documents! As Michael said it also needs to be discussing issues communities really care about.

Cheshire West and Chester Council use Twitter quite succesfully, they show Council meetings via online, planning application info, post job vacancies and tweet other Council news everyday - meaning that they are able top attract and maintain quite a lot of followers. This strikes me as perhaps more useful than just having planning on its own.

Hi, I thought I would (once again!) bring this issue back to the top of the pile. My authority are intending to implement a social media policy soon and we in Planning are to shortly go live with a Facebook and Twitter page - not just for the LDF but for the whole of Planning Services. I was wondering whether any other authorities have undertaken a similar venture in the last 5 months and whether anyone has any advice for how comments on both LDF consultations and planning applications should be treated and how they have dealt with any legal issues arising. Also, any other tips for success?!

I should also ask...do PAS have a view on this? I note that PAS have a twitter feed so must be at least aware of the implications?

Thanks for raising this again Michael. Telford & Wrekin will be launching Shaping Places - Telford & Wrekin's Future for early engagement in 2012. This document will eventually replace our Core Strategy. When we launch our early engagement we will be using twitter (as part of @TellTelford our engagement name on twitter) facebook and flickr (as part of a photo competition for shaping places). I will provide an update next year....

Cheshire East have a facebook (ceSpatialPlanning), linkedin (Spatial Planning Cheshire East Council) and twitter (@PlaceShaping) accounts. The twitter account and the linkedin feeds have been the most useful. We have found that twitter is a really good way of contacting local media sources and getting information about events out quickly and circulated to a much wider audience than just our own followers. Twitter also links in to linkedin so it does not take much work to update this, but it has meant that a large number of our consultancies and developers are linkedin to us and are able to read our tweets too! I can also recommend taking a look at Cheshire West and Chester's twitter account which is Council wide and uses links to other web sources to get lots of up to date information out quickly. They even stream live they're meetings!

Has anyone used Communtieis of Practice or the new Knowledge Hub for involving people in LDF work? Was wondering if this has potential for either invitee only or more open discussion on DPDs or Area Action Plans..