The discussion was anchored by new polling from Public First, which surfaced a central paradox: 69% of people in Britain believe their community would benefit from new infrastructure, yet 51% of those same people think private developers will end up costing the public more in the long run. As our moderator, Sarah Gaylard, put it at the top: "The same people holding both of those views simultaneously — that's the tension we're here to unpack."
Here's what came out of the room.
Councils outperform developers on trust
The polling found that 30% of people find out about local infrastructure plans through their council — second only to word of mouth, and almost twice as often as from the developer directly. Paul Hutchinson Simpson, Communications & Engagement Lead for Westminster City Council's Church Street regeneration programme, wasn't entirely surprised, but was candid about why.
Councils have structural advantages developers don't: they're present before a scheme starts, during it, and long after; they're often the landlord; their elected members need to engage to get re-elected. And critically, they have recognition. "When I walk into a room and someone says, what do you do work for,” says Simpson, “I say I work for a council. People instinctively know what that means."
He pointed to a 93-year-old resident involved in the Church Street project for 30 years as a vivid illustration of what long-term institutional relationship looks like — and what's at stake when it's not maintained. The practical upshot: having a system that tracks engagement history so that when someone new picks up a project they can see every previous interaction is essential. As Simpson put it, "NationBuilder is quite important to that."
Why "we've done the consultation" isn't enough
Daisy Powell-Chandler, Energy, Climate, and Environment Partner at Public First, identified a structural problem with how developers approach community engagement. "If you follow the planning process to the letter and go no further, you are almost certainly setting yourself up to fail."
The issue isn't that developers aren't consulting — it's that the word means something different to communities than it does to project teams. When residents hear "consultation," they assume they're being asked whether the project should happen at all. But by the time most consultations take place, that decision is largely made; what's actually on the table is the how, the when, and the mitigation. Communities feel misled before the conversation has even started — and that's before you get to the people who simply don't have the time or confidence to engage with a formal process at all. The result, as Daisy put it: you turn up too late, talking in language people don't understand, about a thing they don't care about. Most of them tune out — and the only people left making noise are the ones who oppose it.
Her prescription: engage much earlier, understand what people actually care about, and use messengers they already trust. The jobs argument was a case in point. People say they want job creation from infrastructure — but on the ground, when developers claim "this will create jobs," nobody believes them. Specificity is what builds credibility: showing exactly which local tradespeople would benefit, then activating them as advocates.
Finding quiet supporters before opposition fills the vacuum
Chris Loy, Director of Campaigns and Digital at Stonehaven, reframed the strategic goal in a way that resonated: "You don't have to win the local debate. You have to break even."
The opposition will always be more motivated to speak. The task is getting neutrals to tip towards active advocacy — and making it as frictionless as possible. "Removing the barriers for people to show support — because the campaigns against you are already removing the barriers to show opposition."
The long campaign, and where NationBuilder fits
Line Kristensen, NationBuilder's Director for EMEA, made the case that technology is what makes the whole approach executable at scale.
"It would be lovely if we could have one-to-one conversations with every person impacted. In some cases, it might be 50 people. But it could also be thousands." NationBuilder's role is to give organisations the infrastructure to do it regardless — a unified supporter database where every interaction is tracked and connected to a person, making real segmentation possible. The 200 people who care about green space get different communications from the 300 who care about jobs. "If you send the same message to everybody, they're going to stop caring. People don't feel heard and respected."
The parallel she drew to political campaigning landed well: the best campaigns don't use data to depersonalise — they use it to serve people more meaningfully over time. And the infrastructure you build on one project becomes the foundation for the next.
Start before you need it
If there was one overarching theme from the morning, it was this: the way to move faster on infrastructure is to start earlier. Trying to rush community engagement once a project is already in motion is one of the surest ways to slow it down. Trust isn't something you can build on demand — it's something you spend when you need it, having already saved it over time.
The cost of getting this wrong is significant. Delayed grid projects, billions in additional energy bills, national campaigns that barely cut through — these aren't abstract risks. They're the documented consequence of treating community engagement as a box to tick rather than a long-term investment.
The good news is that the approach isn't complicated, even if it takes discipline. Start early. Understand your community before you try to persuade it. Find your supporters before the opposition finds its voice. Use the right messengers. Close the feedback loop. And build on what you've learned — because the data, relationships, and tools you put in place on one project become the foundation for the next. Long campaigns compound. That's the whole point.