Citizen Space.
Transform your spatial planning engagement.
Citizen Space is the world's most sophisticated spatial planning engagement platform. It's trusted by governments around the world to run their place-based engagement.
From small borough councils to national governments, organisations around the world use Citizen Space for things like:
- calls for sites
- community planning engagement
- local, city and 10-year plans
- zoning and boundary changes
- active travel and transport planning
- neighbourhood planning forums
Citizen Space is a powerful digital platform for gathering place-based feedback and geospatial data. Request a demo to find out more.
What is place-based engagement?
Local authorities the world over need to involve communities in decisions that affect the built environment. They have a statutory duty to consult on things like Local Plans and calls for sites, but it’s important to involve the public in other planning decisions as well.
Typically, planning engagement involves:
- Identifying areas for development, such as brownfield sites or submitted sites
- Publishing plans, maps, and other supporting information
- Gathering input from stakeholders, business owners and the public
- Feeding the generated geospatial data into a GIS
- Publishing submissions, objections and comments
Citizen Space: next-generation engagement
Citizen Space is a secure, powerful platform that is used by governments around the world to engage residents and stakeholders on changes to the built environment.
And now, with the introduction of Citizen Space Geospatial, organisations can conduct their planning engagement and consultation using data, not documents: no more relying on time-consuming manual processes.
Organisations use Citizen Space to create beautiful, interactive maps and gather high-quality geospatial data - which can be fed directly into a GIS.
Request a Free DemoThe future of place-based democracy is one that incorporates useful and diverse geospatial data as part of a more open and transparent way of working.
Standardising transport planning activity
Citizen Space for the London Borough of Hounslow
No single system
The London Borough of Hounslow adopted Citizen Space in 2018. Laura James, Hounslow's Consultation and Engagement Manager who oversaw the procurement process, said, “We were using multiple different systems before we procured Citizen Space. There wasn’t a unified approach that staff and residents could get used to using. What’s good about Citizen Space is that it’s consistent, so for users…it’s much easier to take part.”
About half of Hounslow’s activity is planning and transport-related. So when Citizen Space Geospatial was released, they were one of the first organisations to begin using it.
Saving time using geospatial data
“Up until now a lot of the process around getting responses to geospatial questions has been manual. Both from a customer perspective and from a staff perspective, being able to do that digitally solves a huge time problem,” said Laura. “Having geospatial capability is going to particularly benefit our Transport and Planning teams.”
Request a Free Demo[Working with geospatial data] takes the pain out of those processes that we previously had to do manually, and gives us the ability to complete them more quickly and in a more nuanced way.”
Laura James, Consultation and Engagement Manager, London Borough of Hounslow
Data, not documents
With Citizen Space Geospatial, document-heavy exercises such as calls for sites can be run using data, not paper. You can eliminate manual data entry, including transcribing from responses on paper maps.
Making planning more engaging
Citizen Space for Dublin City Council, ROI
Eye-catching planning engagement
When it comes to consulting on spatial planning and changes to the built environment, Dublin has really embraced the best of what Citizen Space can offer. Consultations on things like Traffic Road Orders or planning applications can often be stuffy, dry and difficult to access. They tend to rely heavily on documents and technical speak, which is sometimes necessary for stakeholder consultation, but can render them inaccessible to the general public.
Citizen Space allows users to embed rich media into the body of their activities, such as images, video, interactive maps, PDF viewers, and so on. This is ideal for consultations on changes to the built environment as it means that respondents can view a visual representation of the proposed changes without having to leave the page they’re already on. This means that there’s no need to download a separate document to view the maps or plans, or visit a council office where the plans are on display.
Maximising mapping
Dublin have consistently made use of the ability to embed maps and images into their activities, as well as other features like chapter-based or routed surveys. The result has been a range of dynamic, easy-to-follow and accessible consultations on things like cycle routes and park refurbishments that are pleasant to respond to for the public and stakeholders alike.
Request a Free DemoCitizen Space has greatly improved the quality and quantity of consultations that we run. The fact that we can have unlimited site admins means that lots of different departments are on board, and having a standardised method of consultation has made the process easier for us and our citizens.
Dublin City Council
Inform at the point of response
Present respondents with everything they need - maps, documents, supporting information - in one place, so they can learn and deliberate through the process of participation.
Lower the barriers to entry, increase response rates and gather informed, meaningful feedback.
Join organisations like the Government of Jersey, the City of Edinburgh Council, the London Borough of Sutton and Cheltenham Borough Council in running your spatial planning engagement with Citizen Space.
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