Unlocking Success in Construction Projects with Effective Communication

Katy Bennett, Senior Account Director at Cavendish Consulting

"During any form of construction or disruption to local communities, effective communication to those impacted is key – whether you’re a developer, contractor, or local authority.

Quality stakeholder engagement can add value to all aspects of your project, including helping to meet your consent requirements, mitigating and managing risk, celebrating successes, establishing and protecting individual relationships with influential stakeholders, and preserving or improving the reputation of the developer or project as a whole.

The purpose is ultimately to act as a ‘good neighbour’, to establish a long-term, positive working relationship with the community you are part of, in a time when construction activity is impacting most communities up and down the country, and at a greater rate than ever before.

Importantly, the engagement opportunities arising from establishing solid basic principles to follow can also unlock value for communities impacted by the disruption. This can be in the form of social value, funding streams, or the delivery of valuable infrastructure for a community.

We recently published a Construction Communications Toolkit, which provides principles to guide stakeholder engagement during construction activity. It is informed by decades of experience in best practice engagement methodology, with learnings from supporting some of the largest and most controversial construction projects through to completion.

The kit establishes six core stakeholder engagement principles which Cavendish considers to be the foundations for a successful communications and engagement programme supporting any form of construction.

Whilst there is not a “one size fits all” approach which can be applied across all work of this nature, establishing these cornerstones early in the project lifecycle can provide the necessary building blocks to grow into, ensuring the community has an opportunity to work with you during the construction period, and knows what’s happening, when and why, as well as what opportunities they have to derive benefits from the work.

You are invited to download the Toolkit and build trust with your stakeholders.”

Download the Toolkit.