Case study
Sainsbury's Supermarkets Nationwide
Providing political and community engagement support across Sainsbury's UK portfolio
The challenge
Sainsbury's operates one of the UK's largest retail property portfolios, with a constant pipeline of new stores, Neighbourhood Hubs, Sainsbury's Locals and refurbishments across the country.
Every scheme brings its own local political context and community sensitivities, requiring engagement that is consistent nationally but tailored to each site.
Our approach
DevComms is appointed as Sainsbury's sole property communications consultant, providing political, stakeholder and community engagement across its schemes and property portfolio UK-wide.
This spans new main supermarket stores through pre-submission, planning and construction, full engagement support for Neighbourhood Hub stores including targeted political engagement, media management and public consultation, and a range of wider estate projects.
For Neighbourhood Hub schemes we have delivered extensive online consultation, including social media campaigns and virtual reality exhibitions.
The outcome
Consultations across the portfolio have delivered strong community support, including recent Neighbourhood Hub schemes at Desborough (482 responses, 89% in support) and Yatton (210 responses, 91% in support). DevComms continues to support Sainsbury's across the UK as its sole property communications consultant.
I have had a very good experience in working with DevComms in the process of communicating with the local community through the planning application which they were managing on behalf of Sainsbury's. We have been kept informed in every step of the process and found them to be very easy to work with.
