Early engagement helps to foster a culture in which people expect to be involved in shaping their neighbourhood so that sharing their views and aspirations becomes a way of life. While this is difficult to achieve, it is essential for getting a new community off to a good start. It can help bring new and existing residents together and is far preferable to trying to turn round a poor reputation further down the line.

Questions to consider:

• What methods will you use to understand the aspirations and concerns of people who are not yet living in the area?
• When will you start engaging with existing residents and how will you deal with their concerns?
• What sort of decisions will you involve new and existing residents in?
• What methods will you choose to find out the range of views from the community you are working with?
• How will you handle the consultation, feedback, decision making and action to steer the community towards greater sustainability and cohesion?
• What opportunities will there be for existing residents to take part in the life of the new community?
• Are there plans to welcome new residents to the area and provide them with information?
• Has a strategy for long-term engagement been considered?

While there are some obvious difficulties in finding a way into a conversation with a community that doesn't yet exist, it is not an impossible situation. Starting to build a community from scratch offers a unique opportunity to achieve real community planning and there are ways of approaching this that can pay off in the long term.

This process is no less difficult in places where growth is planned alongside an existing population. In fact, the difficulties are greater in some ways because there are two distinct groups to understand and to bring together in creating and moving towards a future vision for the place, in addition to listening to the variety of views across various groups. The feelings, views and aspirations of people already living there and of those moving to the area are likely to be very different, not least because those who move into the area are more likely to be making an active choice to live in the new community, which may not be the case for existing residents.

The experiences of people in the early stages matter hugely to the long-term life of a place. A poor reputation can last many years after the place has been built and can be very difficult to shake off. For this reason it is essential that those involved in planning for and building new settlements make a significant effort to engage with future residents before they have arrived, with those residents who are first to arrive to live in the place and with those who already live in the wider area.