How Melton Borough Council transformed their planning consultations
The challenge
Melton Borough Council had been using an online system for their planning consultations for several years, but staff were growing increasingly frustrated with how cumbersome and inefficient it had become. The system was time-consuming for officers to manage, and public participation was conspicuously low, with citizens finding it difficult to submit their responses. With a new Local Plan on the horizon, the planning department decided the time was right to find something better.
The approach
After hearing about Citizen Space, Melton Borough Council requested a demonstration to assess whether it would meet their needs. Following careful consideration, they decided it represented a significant enough improvement to make switching worthwhile, with user-friendliness for both staff and the public being a key factor in that decision. The transition was treated as an opportunity to improve their entire approach to online consultation, not just swap one piece of software for another. Delib provided extensive staff training and dedicated account management support to help the team get set up and make the most of the platform from the outset.
The results
After adopting Citizen Space, Melton quickly saw the ratio of paper responses drop as more people chose to respond online, creating considerable efficiencies for the council. Feedback from the public was strongly positive, with citizens welcoming the fact that they no longer needed to create an account and log in just to take part. The response-saving function proved particularly popular, allowing respondents to save their progress on longer, more detailed submissions.
Citizen Space is much more user-friendly. A huge challenge facing local authorities is getting people to comment on consultations; Citizen Space will help you achieve better, more rounded consultation
Delib is a govtech leader specialising in consultation and engagement, trusted by over 600 government organisations worldwide, including major planning projects. Since 2004, we've been building secure, accessible digital platforms to make participation simpler, fairer, and more inclusive. Our flagship product, Citizen Space, was built in collaboration with the UK government and has supported more than 11 million responses across over 110,000 democratic activities.