Our digital planning public engagement work on our Growth Plans has been commended by the Royal Town Planning Initiative at their national Awards for Planning Excellence ceremony in London.

We had two contenders at the Awards and we are delighted that our Create-a-Town masterplanning digital planning consultation tool used on both the Shirebrook and Creswell Growth Plans has been commended at the Royal Town Planning Institute’s 2023 Awards for Planning Excellence in the Excellence in Digital Planning Practice category.

We were nominated alongside The Future Fox and Digital Urban Place for developing a groundbreaking, web-based interactive feature to help gamify plan-making consultations and drive collaboration and engagement.

Cabinet Member for Growth, Councillor John Ritchie said: “The consultation process for Shirebrook’s regeneration was an amazing creative experience for residents to see how their town may look. I am proud of our planning team for taking a complicated consultation process and making it so accessible to so many.”

The project, which also showed people what Shirebrook Market Place could look like after its public realm improvements using a 3D Virtual Reality hot air balloon ride over Shirebrook, is funded through the DLUHC PropTech Innovation Fund.

Our Statement of Community Involvement was also up for the national award after winning the East Midlands Regional Award for Excellence in Plan-Making but sadly did not win on the night.