Looking beyond financial costs in local authority decision-making

Ben Smallwood, Meng CEng MEI, Sustainability Project Manager- Major Projects, Bristol City Council shares their experience in trialling the Value Toolkit.

In 2021, Bristol Housing Festival partnered with Bristol City Council to trial the Value Toolkit to guide decision-making on developing a brownfield site for new housing development. Bristol City Council are a pioneering local authority and pushes really innovative approaches as part of their drive to deliver better outcomes.

Greenfield or brownfield?

Bristol City Council had identified a brownfield site that could be used for a new residential housing scheme. The challenge was that on paper, the investment case for using a brownfield site did not stack up as they carry slightly more upfront costs than a greenfield site. However, you consider the carbon cost and biodiversity impact of developing a greenfield site, a brownfield site suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Piloting the Value Toolkit

To make a value-based decision and drive better outcomes, Bristol City Council decided to pilot the Value Toolkit. This started with a high-level policy mapping exercise to understand the policy drivers at the central government, regional, local, and ward levels into core themes.

We were able to bring together all the stakeholders for this project into one virtual room for a series of workshops to discuss – what it was that we are trying to drive from a Bristol City Council perspective, what outcomes were wanted, and what decisions would help to realise the outcomes.

Together, we were able to develop a balanced value profile. It strengthened the case for the use of the brownfield site, particularly from a natural capital perspective. An unplanned outcome of the exercise was that the value profile also showed that the use of Modern Methods of Construction was nicely aligned with the outcomes Bristol City Council were looking to drive.

Value for local authorities

The benefits of this pilot project were two-fold."

The policy mapping exercise and value profile provided Bristol City Council with a robust evidence-base for the next steps in the development. There was also tremendous value in bringing a significant group of quite diverse stakeholders around a table to agree on what they wanted the project to achieve.

Setting those expectations upfront, at a policy and a project level, will enable the project team to embed structured measurement methodologies to make sure outcomes are properly monitored and delivered throughout the project lifecycle.

Closing thoughts

I would encourage more local authorities to trial and adopt the Value Toolkit approach to value definition to bring stakeholders together to set tangible outcomes for their projects, programmes and portfolios, that clearly link to the full range of policy priorities.

By providing clear value drivers and outcomes, individual project teams are able to make better decisions throughout the process of delivering these. It is in that cascade from policy to practice that we can drive better outcomes from the built environment."