GUEST COLUMN:
Clare Jones
Founding Director
Grasshopper Communications
We know from both experience and insight that larger scale infrastructure projects tend to be more high profile, and inevitably attract higher levels of engagement.
Although more feedback is always a positive, one of the key challenges is managing the fact that some voices are heard loudly and repeatedly, while others remain much harder to engage. From my experience, that imbalance is one of the central challenges facing community engagement for significant infrastructure in Wales.
That challenge is shaping much of our work at Grasshopper Communications. We are currently developing best-practice guidance for Welsh Government to support the Infrastructure (Wales) Act, focused on enabling developers to engage effectively around significant infrastructure projects. The intention is to create a practical toolkit that can be applied consistently, helping project teams to engage better and earlier with local communities.
At the heart of that work is the idea of engagement as an ongoing, iterative process. Instead of treating consultation as a moment in time, we are encouraging a more circular approach: planning engagement carefully, speaking to people early, reflecting on what is heard, feeding back clearly, and then continuing the conversation. When that happens from the outset, communities have a far greater opportunity to influence outcomes, rather than feeling they are responding to decisions that have already been made.
The communications landscape has changed significantly. People now access information through a wide range of channels, including social media, and the narrative can quickly become dominated by one particular view point or agenda. And this does not necessarily always reflect wider public opinion. Research published by the UK Government last year found that almost half of respondents said they would find new electricity transmission infrastructure acceptable in their local area, yet that level of acceptance is rarely what is visible during consultations.
This creates a real challenge. How do you design a suite of communication tools that reflects the full breadth of local society, encouraging those less inclined to engage to actually have their say? That means thinking carefully about, and having an understanding of, who is being reached, who is not, and why. It also means recognising that silence should not automatically be interpreted as opposition, just as volume should not be mistaken for consensus.
Credibility is established at the very beginning of a consultation process, and once it is lost, it is extremely difficult to recover. From my perspective, credibility comes from preparation. That includes understanding the local community, mapping stakeholders comprehensively, engaging early with elected representatives, and being clear about what information is available at each stage of a project. Transparency matters, as does clarity. So does ensuring that everyone involved in a project understands the engagement approach and their role in delivering it.
The conversation around community benefit has also shifted. While funding remains important, we are increasingly hearing concerns framed around cost of living and fairness. Communities often tell us that if they are expected to accommodate infrastructure with a disproportionate local impact, they want to see a tangible positive effect on their daily lives. More recently, that has included questions about whether hosting energy infrastructure can translate into more direct benefits, such as reductions in energy costs.
What works in one place will not necessarily work in another. In some communities, small, visible initiatives make a real difference. In others, particularly where there are deeper socio-economic challenges, there is an opportunity to think more strategically about community benefit and how it can support longer-term outcomes rather than isolated projects. Identifying those opportunities depends on engagement that goes beyond surface-level consultation.
There is also a wider risk for Wales. Prolonged hesitation around infrastructure has consequences, particularly for future generations. When we speak to younger people, there is often strong support for renewable energy and for the investment that comes with it. The challenge is ensuring that today’s engagement processes are capable of reflecting those future interests alongside current concerns.
Effective communication is not about persuading everyone to agree. It is about creating credible, inclusive processes that allow different parts of society to be heard, understood and taken seriously. If communities are to play a meaningful role in shaping Wales’ future infrastructure, that balance has to be built into engagement from the very start.
Clare Jones talks about this and more in the GRID podcast episode Power to the People – Communities and the Future of the Grid. Listen to the podcast here.
