Customer story: Buckinghamshire County Council, UK

Commuting from leafy suburbia

Buckinghamshire, a county notable for its open countryside and natural features, is home to three of the 10 most expensive towns in Britain. Most of South Bucks is situated within the Metropolitan Green Belt. You may therefore be forgiven for thinking of it as a green and rural idyll; however much of the densely populated south and east experience severe traffic congestion thanks to being part of the London commuter belt.

Here there’s an inevitable tension between commuters’ need to reach their destination quickly versus the needs of other road users, like pedestrians and cyclists, to make journeys that are pleasant and pollution-free. So when planning ways to make it easier to walk and cycle, the Council has its work cut out to satisfy everyone.

That’s where a sophisticated consultation tool like Citizen Space comes in: by enabling its users to embed rich media into the body of their consultation – such as images, video, interactive maps, and PDF viewers – Citizen Space can present local knowledge in various ways to broker the best deal for all.

Cycle-tastic

Buckinghamshire Council has embraced the best of what Citizen Space can offer in their platform, which they’ve titled Your Voice Bucks. They put this to good use in Aylesbury, where they ran a four-month consultation on the Gardenway proposal, an 18-kilometre orbital park circling the town.

Through Your Voice Bucks they held online community conversations, design sessions, and online exhibitions, reaching out to local residents, businesses and visitors. A timeline gave an overview of activities and events, and people could place a virtual pin on an interactive map to specify their area of concern, say what they think about it, and suggest how the Gardenway project could make their neighbourhood better.

A smaller scale project in the village of Wendover to develop the cycling network was enabled through funding made available through HS2. After investigating various options in the village and talking with local groups, Buckinghamshire Council used Citizen Space to propose three new cycle routes: one to improve links to the railway stations, one to improve school access, and a new shared use cycleway. Respondents were able to view and engage with interactive maps for each route on Citizen Space, and zoom in to see the detail of where they might be affected.

Enabling ongoing engagement

Citizen Space has the flexibility to include not just statutory consultations but also all manner of surveys and engagement exercises. Buckinghamshire Council uses it to ask for comment on all of its services, spanning schools, the environment, social care, libraries and transport. Citizen Space’s simple, annual subscription package means that access can easily be granted to all these departments without having to buy extra licences.

With over 70 consultations and other engagements in the past 12 months, Citizen Space is central to Buckinghamshire Council’s engagement with all who want to get involved in local decision-making.