Research and analysis

Public engagement on grid infrastructure

Published 9 July 2025

Rapid projects support government departments to understand the scientific evidence underpinning a policy issue or area by convening academic, industry and government experts at a single roundtable. These summary meeting notes seek to provide accessible science advice for policymakers. They represent the combined views of roundtable participants at the time of the discussion and are not statements of government policy.

How can we bring the public with us as we accelerate expansion of grid infrastructure to meet the goals of clean power by 2030 and net zero by 2050?

Meeting note from roundtable chaired by Professor Dame Angela McLean, Government Chief Scientific Adviser, and attended by Minister for Climate Change Kerry McCarthy.

12 December 2024

Key points

1. Achieving net zero requires construction of new grid infrastructure and many changes to existing networks. Failing to adequately engage with the public and build trust first risks delays but also misses an opportunity to make these changes locally appropriate and fairer.

2. Building trust requires transparency and openness about the changes needed, their connection to the wider transition to net zero, the nature of the process and how public concerns will be addressed.

3. It is difficult to be quick on infrastructure roll out and be fair to affected communities, but engaging with people – as early as possible – will save time in the long term. Evidence suggests it is important to be seen to be fair to increase social legitimacy around the changes needed and to foster support; being fair is therefore a precondition of being fast.

4. A wider, more joined up approach that connects engagements and activities locally, regionally and nationally – and across organisations and institutions – offers potential benefits. This includes helping make the case for local and regional infrastructure developments as part of a broader national ambition. Evidence from previous engagements should be applied to future engagement processes in order to better understand public views and demonstrate responsiveness to public concerns.

How to balance ‘fast’ and ‘fair’

5. The social science literature argues that going fast on changes to grid infrastructure and being fair are potentially compatible, but there is likely to be a trade-off between the two (Kroot, 2024; Newell, 2022; Skjølsvold T.M. & Coenen L, 2021). If people perceive projects to be unfair, this is likely to significantly limit their chances of success.

6. Instead of being fast or fair, it is necessary to be fair in order to be fast. Delays to the Irish North-South interconnector line demonstrates that prioritising speed over engagement can result in a loss of trust that takes time to rebuild and creates delays (Boyle et al, 2024; Boyle et al, 2025). Conversely, case studies from the Netherlands show the value of involving people as early as possible to build trust and fairness (Ruiten et al 2023).

7. Both distributive and procedural fairness should be considered in engagement and grid transformations.

8. Distributive fairness involves ensuring that risks are fairly distributed and that those impacted are fairly compensated and receive a fair share of the benefits, for example through community benefit schemes. Such compensation schemes work best when they are transparent, consistently applied and scaled appropriately to the size of the project.

9. Benefits do not always need to consist of financial compensation. There are broadly four types of benefits: 1) economic (e.g. jobs or training), 2) environmental (e.g. protection of wildlife), 3) social (e.g. provision of community facilities), 4) cultural (e.g. funding for public art).

10. However, there is mixed evidence that benefits change people’s minds, and they are unlikely to persuade those already opposed to infrastructure changes (Knauf, 2022). Community benefits should not be the primary nor the initial basis of engagement to avoid perceptions of bribery (Cass et al, 2010).

11. Procedural fairness emphasises the importance of people having opportunities to participate, the process itself being seen as fair and on a range of voices being heard during the process of decision making, rather than on outcomes or efforts to convince people (Ryder et al, 2023).

How to engage effectively

12. Tokenistic engagement (i.e. that which is not genuinely inclusive and/or is conducted merely to satisfy procedural requirements) can result in significant problems and should be avoided(Ruiten, 2023).

13. Securing approval for specific infrastructure projects should not be the only objective of engagement. Where engagement has already begun, reframing it at the earliest opportunity to be part of co-design or co-development (i.e. where community members are treated as collaborators in the process) is acknowledged as good practice (Natarajan et al, 2018; Rohse et al, 2024; Tobiasson et al, 2016).

14. Even if certain things, such as pylon routing, cannot be changed, treating people as collaborators can create a fairer process where public concerns and injustices are recognised and responded to by decision makers and institutions. This fairer process includes ensuring adequate community input into how community benefits are decided upon, such as who is considered eligible to receive community funds (Devine-Wright and Sherry-Brennan, 2019).

15. Citizen panels are one potential method of engagement to understand local or regional factors, but these must be transparent about what they can achieve in terms of impacts on policy or decisions, be adequately resourced and must be representative to have legitimacy(Coxcoon, 2014; Sandover et al, 2021). Any engagement should make connections between the changes expected and wider intended outcomes (such as reaching net zero, and the benefits that will bring) as well as specific planning issues (e.g. where power lines will be running and who will be affected).

16. Evidence indicates that communities often do not connect local infrastructure projects to wider energy transitions, and that doing so could increase public acceptance (Lienert et al, 2015).

17. Regional road shows or community forums are proven to be an effective way to launch local and regional conversations but may be less effective in connecting specific infrastructure proposals with wider energy transitions (Boyle et al, 2025); engagement at local, regional and national levels must be joined up (Bickerstaff et al, 2024; Chilvers et al, 2023). This engagement takes time and must be sequenced correctly (i.e. it shouldn’t rush to grid specifics before building legitimacy around bigger picture transformation).

18. The public are already involved in a range of interactions with grid infrastructure beyond government and suppliers through online engagement, community energy projects, activism and protest and interactions with smart technologies (UK Energy Research Council, 2024). Evidence from existing engagements should be the starting point for future engagement processes in order to better understand public views and demonstrate responsiveness to public concerns (Chilvers et al, 2018; Defra Social Science Expert Group, 2022).

19. Where efforts are made to streamline and shorten planning consent processes (such as the use of AI tools), transparency and accountability will be important to ensure people are confident that, when they do feed in, their concerns will be heard and properly addressed.

20. Grid development stirs strong emotions, particularly linked to previous experiences and history locally. These must not be overlooked, and evidence suggests that consideration of emotions is important to the success or failure of projects (Queen, 2021).

21. While undergrounding new power lines is generally more publicly acceptable compared to overhead lines, there is some evidence that providing information about the impacts of undergrounding can reduce differences in public attitudes between the two approaches (Lienert et al, 2015).

On trust and messengers

22. Scientists tend to be trusted and can be useful messengers, particularly regarding health concerns around infrastructure (Amoon et al, 2020), but people get their information from a range of sources and a diversity of trusted voices will be needed, both technical and non-technical (Ryder et al, in review).

23. People are not convinced by consultant-led engagement or PR exercises, due to the clear vested interests, questions around transparency and their short-term nature (Cotton & Devine-Wright, 2013; Queen, 2021).

24. The private ownership model of utilities and perceptions of corporate profit motives influence levels of public trust and distrust; recent publicised controversies in public utilities (i.e. around water companies) could affect trust in energy and electricity companies (Roelich & Litman-Roventa, 2020; Cave & Wright, 2021).

25. Government leadership on the national story of transformation should not be restricted to advertising campaigns. A national engagement strategy that provides a compelling vision and a co-ordinated approach is still needed to gain the publics involvement in the broad net zero challenge (Cave & Wright, 2021).

26. Care should be taken with the use of ‘imagined publics’, i.e. the idea that groups of people or personas exist ‘in the real world’ (e.g. NIMBYs) and that one can predict how they will react (Batel S. & Devine-Wright P, 2020). Such preconceptions can be used to justify engagement and policy decisions, but the evidence suggests that they are rarely representative and that decisions following from them can reduce public acceptance and trust (Barnett et al, 2012; Devine-Wright, 2011)

Attendees

• Kerry McCarthy (Minister for Climate Change)
• Professor Dame Angela McLean (Government Chief Scientific Adviser; chair)
• Paul Monks (Chief Scientific Adviser, DESNZ).

Academic and expert participants

• Jason Chilvers (University of East Anglia)
• Matthew Cotton (Teesside University)
• Patrick Devine-Wright (University of Exeter)
• Melanie Rohse (Anglia Ruskin University)
• Catherine Queen (University of Liverpool)

References

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Batel S. & Devine-Wright P. (2020) Using NIMBY rhetoric as a political resource to negotiate responses to local energy infrastructure: a power line case study. Local Environment, 25 (5)

Bickerstaff K., et al. (2024) Making a Net Zero Society-Follow the Social Science. Report

Boyle E., et al. (2024) Levers and obstacles for implementing public engagement practices in electricity grid development, Heliyon, 10 (15)

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Cotton M. & Devine-Wright P. (2013) Putting pylons into place: a UK case study of public perspectives on the impacts of high voltage overhead transmission lines. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 56 (8)

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