As part of a multidisciplinary team led by AR Urbanism, we worked on the production of the Totton Town Centre Master Plan. This was shaped through direct engagement with the people who use the town every day.
We ran a citizens’ panel process that brought residents, traders, and visitors into genuine dialogue about the town centre’s future, moving beyond one-off consultation events toward a sustained, representative conversation about what Totton needs.
This work sits within our wider portfolio of panel and mini-public approaches, which has also included panels in Bournemouth and design code engagement in Spelthorne, and reflects our conviction that town centre change lands better and lasts longer when it’s built with, not for, the community.
The panel format let us test ideas honestly, surface disagreements, and build the kind of trust that makes a masterplan credible once it’s published. Totton is a town centre facing real pressures, such as changing retail patterns, a lack of a clear identity, and competing priorities for limited space, and our role has been to ensure the people who know it best have a real hand in shaping its response.
