1. Sherwood Sustainability & Environmental Associates Ltd., Burrough Court, Burrough-on-the-Hill, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. LE14 2QS
Tel: 01664400150 Email: admin@ssea.co.uk Web: www.ssea.co.uk
SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
What we do…
Sustainable communities are places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They are
sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. They are safe and inclusive, well
planned, built and run, and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all.
We pride ourselves on engaging with the right people, in the right way and at the right time. Our
approaches differ for each project we undertake because no community is the same, but our objectives
are the same – that is to get the buy-in of people and groups from the beginning and ensure that
consultations start with an honest intent.
We also work closely with our partner the ‘Sustainable Land Trust’ to encourage and facilitate involvement
of the community. See sltrust.org.uk for more details of the New Landscapes: New Communities
programme.
Why people like us…
At Sherwood we work with our clients to set clear objectives and targets from the start in
order that consultations and engagement activities minimise concern from all participants
and provide opportunities to shape the development of projects.
We work within the National Standards of Community Engagement and the Consultation
Charter and follow best practice advice from Community Planning, the Consultation Institute,
and the Royal Town Planning Institute.
Building Communities
Sustainability assessments
Sustainability strategies
BREEAM Communities accredited assessor
 SE 01 Consultation planning
 SE 02 Demographic needs & priorities
 GO 02 Consultation & engagement
 GO 03 Design review
 SE 17 Training & skills
Consultation strategy
Community engagement
Stakeholder mapping
Website and social media design and management
Supporting Communities
Neighbourhood planning
Community needs assessments
Consultation & engagement
Project management
Research & feasibility
Partnership building & liaison
Social enterprise development
Community Forums
Community & stakeholder engagement
Business planning
"Never doubt that a small
group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can
change the world. Indeed, it's
the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead

2. www.ssea.co.uk
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OUR EXPERIENCE
Sustainable Neighbourhood Planning
Our team are supporting the community of Langham in
Rutland in preparing their Neighbourhood Plan. This
attractive village on the outskirts of Oakham faces many
pressures which include the risk of encroachment by the
neighbouring town, increases in traffic, and other issues
familiar to villages around the UK.
We are providing specialist sustainability, planning, and
community engagement support to enable the village to
develop a plan that is robust enough to be able to
contend with the aims and objectives of local people
living there today, but also develops a vision for people
in the future.
Part of this project involves working with children of
Langham Church of England Primary School in creating
a model of the village to form the basis of the
consultation process.
BREEAM Communities and Planning
We are proud to be managing and assessing a large
scale proposal to create an extension to a rural
Lincolnshire village using the BREEAM Communities
methodology. The tool has been developed to engage
communities and stakeholders at the earliest point in a
scheme in order to understand the needs of the village
or town. The engagement process includes working with
Parish Council’ schools, churches, local community
groups, businesses and individuals to inform the design
and content of a scheme and to be the conduit to keep
local people informed and involved.
We have so far carried out face to face, telephone and
email consultations with people, groups, business and
organisations, as well as organising community visioning
events. We have created a dedicated website and
Facebook page which we use to receive comments and
to share information
Sustainable Eco-Lodges
We were asked to provide sustainability and community
engagement support to help develop a small eco-lodge
proposal in Kirton in Lindsey, Lincolnshire. Due to mis-
information, the community were adverse to the
proposal initially, thinking that it would be a site for
travellers. Our role was to provide the right information
to local people and businesses and to engage them in
what would be an exciting new opportunity for low
impact tourism within their community.
Working with our associates at Acorn Planning, we
carried out community consultation and engagement
events and activities to ensure that the right information
was understood and how the village would benefit from
the proposal. Working door to door; ringing local
businesses; and holding consultation events, the team
were able to turn around this project, and it won
planning approval in early 2014.