The scale of our activities brings many benefits, including job creation and regeneration of local areas, but it also brings big responsibilities to the communities in which we operate, as our activities have a lasting impact on them – and we want these to be positive.
Through our Community Charter we have made ten commitments to the communities in which our major UK properties and developments are located. These set out our approach to key local issues, such as training, employment and education; local sourcing of goods and services; providing clean and green environments, and community engagement throughout the development process. The Charter also sets out what these commitments mean in practice. The approach is not new to us, but we recognise that more can be done to ensure a consistent approach across our portfolio.
We aim to be the best neighbour we can be – creating environments where communities and businesses thrive.
We are working with our suppliers, local people, community groups, local authorities and other partners to implement the ten long-term commitments we have set out in our Community Charter.
These ten commitments are:
- From the moment we acquire major properties, we will start to build relationships with local people and organisations
- When we want to make significant changes to our properties, we will engage with the local community at an early stage
- As we build, we will keep the local community informed about what's happening and listen to their views
- We will aim to buy goods and services from local businesses, both directly and through our suppliers
- We will support training, employment and education for local people
- We will empower our Head Office and on-site teams to work with local people and organisations
- We will encourage our suppliers and occupiers to actively support local projects
- We will provide safe, clean and green environments for occupiers and local people
- We will make it as easy as possible for people to get to and from our properties
- We will independently assess our performance to ensure that we are working effectively with local communities
We are focusing on delivering these challenging commitments at our major UK properties and developments first, where we have on-site teams who can work closely with local people and community groups.
Community Charter PDF (0.75MB) PDF 0.75MB
Poor engagement with local communities where we own or plan to develop assets
- Impacts: Adverse impact on our reputation; failure or delay in securing planning approval.
- Mitigants: Community Charter; community stakeholder survey; effective local engagement.
