Proof that it's possible - The Commonplace 2025 Awards

Our 2025 award winners are the example we can all follow in striving to make better places together. It’s easy to say we want better places - places that feel safer, greener, more connected, and more affordable.  It’s harder to deliver them, especially when decisions are complex, trade-offs are real, and trust in institutions can be fragile.

Our 2025 award winners are the proof. They show what happens when engagement is treated as core work: designed with intent, delivered with care, and translated into insight that communities and decision-makers can act on.

This isn’t an awards announcement. It’s the “why” behind the Awards and an invitation to raise the standard.

Why we do the Commonplace Awards

Citizen engagement can still be reduced to a phase in a project plan: publish a consultation, collect feedback, produce a report, move forward.

But the most effective teams know engagement is not a box to tick. It’s a capability that improves over time and it changes outcomes when it’s done well.

We run the Awards because they help to:

Make excellent work visible
Some of the most impactful engagement is methodical and unglamorous: iterating language, refining maps, improving accessibility, showing up in person, building trust, responding to feedback. Recognition helps that work be seen and valued.

Define what “good” looks like
The sector improves faster when there are concrete examples to learn from. The Awards spotlight the design choices that lead to better participation, better insight, and better decisions.

Celebrate the people behind the process
Engagement succeeds because of practitioners: local authority officers, community connectors, consultants, communications leads, analysts, and project teams who make participation possible, especially for people who are often left out.

Raise expectations, not just profiles
Ultimately, we want a higher baseline across planning, regeneration, infrastructure and service change. Whe

Our 2025 winners

Engagement of the Year: The Great Places Conversation - Urban Flourishing (Urban Initiatives)

https://urban-flourishing.commonplace.is/

Urban Flourishing’s Great Places Conversation filled a critical gap that many projects overlook: the period before formal consultation begins.

By using a nationwide Commonplace to capture what people value about where they live, and what holds them back, this work created a rich, postcode-level evidence base early enough to influence what came next.

Since launch, it has engaged over 16,000 participants and gathered more than 5,000 detailed responses, translating local experience into an open, interactive map and bi-annual reports for communities and built environment professionals.

The lesson: Start early, and engagement doesn’t just improve feedback, it improves the foundations.

360° Engagement of the Year: Leeds Local Plan - Leeds City Council

https://leedslocalplan.commonplace.is/

Local Plans are technical and high-stakes. They can also be intimidating - creating a participation gap even when people care deeply about the outcome.

Leeds City Council demonstrated that scale and accessibility can go together. This was the largest Local Plan ever produced on Commonplace, delivered through a network of 12 interlinked sites using accessible language, interactive maps, simple surveys, and rich media like videos and imagery.

Over 10 weeks it generated 175,000 unique visitors and just over 40,000 contributions from 20,000 respondents, delivering Leeds City Council’s highest ever response rate.

The lesson: If you design for understanding, you make space for participation at scale.

Community Voice Champion: Alice Poole - Devon County Council

https://devoncountycouncil.commonplace.is/

The strongest engagement is often driven by individuals who combine creativity, operational delivery, and a clear commitment to inclusion.

Alice Poole led Devon County Council’s first Commonplace survey and rapidly turned it into a county-wide roadshow - converting a former Covid-19 testing van, organising 27 public events and four staff events, and delivering a marketing plan that more than doubled the original response target (7,470 responses vs 3,000).

Crucially, she ensured “hard to hear” residents were included through tailored outreach, accessible materials and a highly engaging video - bringing rural and underrepresented communities into a complex conversation about local government change.

The lesson: Inclusion is not a statement. It’s delivery.

Making better places together

If you work in local government, development, infrastructure, planning, regeneration or service transformation, the reason to invest in better engagement is not just values-driven. It’s outcomes-driven.

Better engagement won’t remove disagreement. But it can replace cynicism with clarity, and conflict with a process people recognise as fair.

We run the Commonplace Awards to celebrate what’s working and to make it easier for others to replicate. Because better engagement is not theoretical. It’s happening now, in real projects, with real constraints.

Our 2025 winners are proof that it’s possible.