Case Study: Portishead Town Council boosts neighbourhood plan engagement with Commonplace

Portishead Town Council - Customer Case Study

Portishead Town Council needed to engage a wide cross-section of residents in shaping its Neighbourhood Plan and local planning priorities, despite Covid-19 restrictions limiting in-person consultation. To do this, the council turned to Commonplace and its digital engagement platform, using tools such as Community Heatmap, Design Feedback, and built-in news updates to gather community views at scale.

With Commonplace, Portishead Town Council engaged over 7,500 local people and collected more than 4,500 contributions, helping inform a draft Neighbourhood Plan and feed priorities into the Local Plan. The campaign delivered strong engagement, including email open rates of 57% to 71%, nearly 50% of traffic from social media, and six times more responses than a previous physical-only consultation, while saving the council significant time in collating feedback.

Portishead Town Council

Paul Gardiner

Vice-Chair