Cork City’s Local Economic and Community Plan 2024 - 2029
5.6 Public Consultation This chapter outlines and summarises the process and findings of the public consultation that informed the development of this LECP. Public Consultation Process We delivered a 10-week public consultation that took place in March, April and May of 2023. We sought input from all who call Cork City home. This included people who work, do business and study in the city.
Cork City’s LECP – A Model of Best Practice The consultation work on this LECP was selected as a model of best practice by the Department of Rural and Community Development and features in the ‘Guide to Inclusive Community Engagement’ (Second Edition, Department of Rural and Community Development, 2023) 33 .
Plain English Approach The LECP team was committed to
accessibility and readability . To provide for this, team members took part in NALA Plain English training and applied some plain English guidelines when writing and designing content for the public consultation process. NALA also provided some early plain English support with some parts of this guide. Plain English is a communication in which wording, structure and design are so clear that intended readers – you in this instance – can easily: • Find what they need • Understand what they find, and use that information [Source: International Plain Language Federation] 34 Reaching the Seldom Heard The aim of the public consultation was to hear as many views as possible from across the city with a special focus on reaching the seldom heard voices of minority and marginalised communities. We also used the consultation process as a way to further engage with our partners from across the public services, community and voluntary sectors. Our partners are key in helping us put this new LECP in place.
People and organisations could ‘have their say’ in different ways. These included:
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Sending us a written submission (online or hard copy) Completing a public survey (online or hard copy) Visiting an LECP clinic in their local library Participating in an in-person engagement event
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Participating in an interagency meeting (meeting with different agencies represented)
Inclusive Community Engagement Principles We used best practice guidelines on local community engagement as outlined in the ‘Values and Principles for Collaboration and Partnership Working with the Community and Voluntary Sector (Department of Rural and Community Development, 2022) 32 ’ to design the consultation.
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