BETTER PLACES TOGETHER CONFERENCE:

Rethinking Engagement & Social Value

Thursday 12th June 2025, BOXPARK Liverpool

Overview

How can we rethink engagement and social value from tender to legacy and create Better Places Together?

Hosted at BOXPARK Liverpool, Better Places Together is a programme of collaboration and action from PLACED. Open to all, it will explore how rethinking the approach to engagement and social value can create better places for everyone.

Better Places Together focuses on the crucial ‘how’ of engaging communities and less-heard groups, reflecting ground-level experience and knowledge to rethink what constitutes best practice. The event aims to create a space for critical and open discussion, where the challenges and barriers to delivering successful engagement and social value can be discussed, and active solutions can be collectively devised.

Better Places Together is organised and delivered by PLACED with the support of their valued collaborators and industry peers.

Why attend?

Better Places Together is not a conventional conference. Instead, we will have storytellers - diverse voices that share their stories and personal experiences of the built environment, helping set the scene and frame activities.

With co-production at its heart, it is a space for active participation and discussion without hierarchies, where all voices are valued and equally heard. This inaugural PLACED conference is an invaluable opportunity to meet and engage with people from different backgrounds and share diverse experiences of the built environment in an inclusive setting.

    • Build awareness of key engagement challenges and understand how overcoming them early leads to stronger results, fewer delivery risks, and better community relationships.

    • Develop a deeper understanding of how to maximise the impact of engagement and social value specialists through commissioning, making your job easier and outcomes better.

    • Work with underrepresented groups, design teams, and engagement specialists to create better-informed designs that build trust and avoid late-stage challenges.

    • Strengthen your tender processes to ensure you commission engagement that is practical, people-centred, and proven to deliver greater value and impact for your projects.

    • Discuss challenges in delivering effective engagement and social value, explore how to overcome them, and identify what ‘best practice’ looks like to achieve better outcomes.

    • Collaborate directly with underrepresented groups to understand how the built environment sector can better involve and reflect the communities it serves.

    • Network with potential future clients and collaborators who are committed to delivering engagement that is meaningful, practical, and people-centred.

    • Explore with commissioners how engagement should be framed in tenders to secure better results, reduce delivery risks, and maximise community value.

    • Advocate for the inclusion of underrepresented voices in conversations shaping the built environment, alongside key stakeholders and decision-makers.

    • Have honest discussions about the challenges facing your networks and work together to find practical solutions that drive change.

    • Be present where decisions are made. Third sector voices are often missing from national conversations, but your expertise is essential to delivering real solutions. This is your space to change that.

About PLACED

Established in 2011, PLACED is a social enterprise based in the North West, dedicated to public engagement and place-based education. Working at the intersection of design, planning, and community empowerment, PLACED amplifies less-heard voices and ensures that communities are actively involved in shaping the spaces around them. Through innovative engagement methods, workshops, and events, PLACED bridges the gap between communities, built environment professionals, and decision-makers, advocating for genuine collaboration and social impact.

The PLACED team are excited to host the inaugural Better Places Together conference and welcomes commissioners, design teams, built environment professionals and community advocates to engage in meaningful discussions and share insights on best practices in engagement and social value.