The experiences of the last few months has undoubtedly resulted in more people actively connecting (or reconnecting) with their local area. This is set to continue due to the extent of home working.
With more people than ever before likely interested in their surrounding environment, this should be an obvious and opportune time for planning systems (not least in the UK and Ireland) to revisit current approaches to engage people at the outset of the planning process.
Interesting article by the Planner on how processes currently operate in a UK context, giving food for thought on how these can be improved in the short term.