Colour photo of a posed group of coffee shop staff and customers on the street outside The Orchard coffee shop.
A portrait of shop owners, staff and customers standing behind raised beds, planted as part of Greening The Street project, outside The Orchard Coffee Lounge at 13 Market Place, Wednesbury, Sandwell © Historic England Archive View image record DP437680
A portrait of shop owners, staff and customers standing behind raised beds, planted as part of Greening The Street project, outside The Orchard Coffee Lounge at 13 Market Place, Wednesbury, Sandwell © Historic England Archive View image record DP437680

Collaborate with Stakeholders and Partners

Building strong relationships with stakeholders and partners is crucial to the success of a heritage led regeneration scheme. Their support can help your scheme run more smoothly as it progresses. Stakeholders and partners can also become advocates for your scheme and protect its legacy when it ends.

On this page
  1. Stakeholder engagement
  2. Building owners and tenants
  3. Partnerships

Stakeholder engagement

Your stakeholders are any groups or individuals who are impacted by your regeneration scheme or who have influence over it. You will need to plan how to engage these groups so that you can build and maintain their support.

Effective stakeholder engagement should be a constant process of working with and listening to your stakeholders throughout the regeneration scheme. 

Determine who your stakeholders are

List all possible stakeholders, both internal and external. Ensure that all voices,  including those from the local community, are heard, by engaging with community organisations and representatives.

Group and prioritise stakeholders

Categorise the list of potential stakeholders according to their influence, interest and levels of participation in the project. 

Determine how to communicate with each type of stakeholder

Think strategically about the different stakeholder types. Consider their priorities and their view of the project.

List all stakeholders in a table and capture the following information for each one:

  1. How much does the project impact them?
  2. How much influence do they have over the project?
  3. What is important to the stakeholder?
  4. How could they contribute?
  5. How could they affect the project?
  6. Strategy for engaging with the stakeholder
  7. Who will manage the relationship?

You will then be ready to start developing targeted plans to engage your stakeholders.

Make sure you continue to work with your stakeholders. Listen to their feedback, find out what challenges they are facing and align your plans and communication strategy with their needs.

Build strong partnerships from the very beginning because you don't know when you're going to need to call upon these for help.

High Street Heritage Action Zone Programme Manager Dunstable Town Council

Lessons learnt: engagement tips

  • Actively involve and listen to the community to make sure your regeneration scheme reflects the needs of local people. 
  • Engage early and consistently. It is important to get all your key stakeholders on board at an early stage, and maintain ongoing open dialogue with partners and stakeholders to keep them updated and to manage their expectations.
  • A strong and engaging project lead who is invested in the local area is key. They are the frontline advocate and spokesperson for the scheme and need to be visible and present for face-to-face meetings with stakeholders.

These lessons were gathered from Historic England's partners who delivered regeneration projects during the High Streets Heritage Action Zones programme.

Building owners and tenants

Of all your local partners, it is the building owners and tenants engagement in your regeneration scheme that can make or break it.

From the start and throughout your scheme, take time to understand them, build trust, be available for regular face to face meetings and support them through the process. 

Official sources of owner details include:

  • Land registry searches
  • Planning application records
  • Business rates records

Start by contacting them directly, delivering a letter by hand to:

  • registered owner address
  • each property, addressed to the tenant 

You will get the best uptake if you visit each owner and tenant personally and explain your regeneration scheme, leaving them your contact details.

Include a short survey form and make it easy for people to respond. Your survey should also be available electronically with an e-survey link and an option to email it back.

Include questions about whether they are interested in grant funding, if they have specific timings that would influence when they may want to carry out the work.

Getting to know owners and tenants will inform how you communicate with them and what support you offer to enhance their participation in your scheme. Ask yourself:

  • Are they local? Are they absentee or investment landlords? Might tenants be more interested in the scheme?
  • Are there other barriers you need to overcome in approaching or engaging owners and tenants?
    • Is English their first language for example? If not they may need translated versions of documents
    • Do they have access to the internet? If not, find out how they would like to be kept up to date
  • Who in the business community could be an ambassador for your scheme? The chair of the local business support group may be able to help broker conversations. Sometimes local religious leaders can help develop an understanding, make connections or build trust with local owners.
  • Keep a log of when you contact people, their name and response and whether they were the owner or the tenant.
  • Some people and businesses will be hard to reach through a direct approach. Other methods that may work include:
    • Raising awareness through social media or local press
    • Attending established coffee and networking events in the area
    • Taking over a shop unit temporarily or having a central hub on the high street local to the community you are working with. That presence will help you meet owners quickly, keep an eye on project progress and respond to enquiries
    • Mounting displays in key locations, including vacant shop units in the area
  •  Do not forget that any personal data you keep a record of must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation.

A high level of interest in the project is a good start. Owner interest will influence your initial regeneration scheme plan. But there is a lot to be worked out to bring more certainty to your scheme timetable:

  • Potential costs
  • Grant funding available
  • What funds the owner can invest themselves
  • What work the owner or tenant is willing to carry out and when

Be persistent and don't give up. We found some property owners said no the first time you approached them, and several times after that, or said yes and then changed their mind, but were subsequently encouraged to reconsider.

High Street Heritage Action Zone Programme Manager Dunstable Town Council

Partnerships

Regeneration schemes involve a lot of partnership working as a way of leveraging the funding, resource, expertise, access and influence needed for the success of the scheme.

Partnering with local community organisations and stakeholder groups is crucial to ensure your plans reflect the interests and aspirations of local communities and encourage their participation.

Giving ownership of regeneration scheme projects to community organisations and partners can also empower them to sustain projects and their benefits to the community after the regeneration scheme ends.

Lessons learnt: choosing and working with partners

  • Partner with organisations that have the same goals as your scheme
  • Build on the work of existing community groups and networks in the local area and use their communication channels to promote activities
  • Seek out partners who can contribute specialist or local expertise and insight, and involve these in an advisory role on your projects
  • Establishing open communication and collaborative planning from the start, and maintaining this throughout the programme, builds trust and support from your partners
  • A clear governance structure, well defined roles and responsibilities, and clear communication, are key to effective delivery of partnership schemes

These lessons were gathered from Historic England's partners who delivered regeneration projects during the High Streets Heritage Action Zones programme.

Case studies

Through opening up dialogue with internal council departments, it became clear that there were existing groups out there that were already delivering the aims and objectives of the HSHAZ scheme. Setting up a consortia through these internal departments brought together all the many diverse groups and found how they could contribute...

Head of Town Centre Regeneration, Kirklees Council Huddersfield High Street Heritage Action Zone

Also of interest

Heritage and Regeneration Advice Hub