Creating a more Positive Space - Our Community Charter

Everyone has a common interest in making places that are safe, prosperous and fair. The problem is we often struggle to work well together. Levels of trust are low and people feel disconnected from how the places where they live and work are managed and evolve.

Positive Space aims to set a new standard for public engagement across our business and ensure communities have a meaningful voice in future of their neighbourhoods.

Four principles set out how we engage with the people who play a critical part in day-to-day neighbourhood life: from residents, businesses and institutions to community organisations and amenity societies.

Our aim is to create a more Positive Space where the trade-offs involved in change are openly debated, more voices are heard and everyone works more productively together. Because ultimately that’s how to help places thrive.

And alongside our own commitments, we also make an ask of communities in return, and hope that both sets of commitments will strengthen further over time.

A guide to better public engagement

To help put Positive Space into practice we designed a training programme with 20 of the UK’s top experts on public engagement covering topics from active listening to accountability and influence.

We’ve now brought together their insights and tips in a guide called Positive Space in Practice. It’s practical and short, and grounded in the basic idea that communities are not a problem to be solved. Involving people leads to better outcomes and there’s a wealth of evidence to support this.

it’s why we’re investing in building the capability and confidence of our teams, and by sharing our learnings we hope to help and inspire others too