Rethinking local food environments through Deliberation for Essex County Council

Essex County Council commissioned Claremont to support the development of a new public health programme focused on reshaping how residents understand local food environments and their impact on health.

The challenge was to move beyond individual behaviour focused messaging and towards a systemic narrative that acknowledges how pricing, placement, availability and marketing shape food choices.

Claremont delivered Citizen Circles, a novel deliberative methodology developed in-house that combines the rigour and legitimacy of traditional deliberative practices with a more agile and scalable format.

Citizen Circles has been specifically designed to meet the growing need for meaningful public involvement that can deliver informed consensus and credible legitimacy within tighter timelines. The approach enables participants to engage with balanced evidence, hear diverse perspectives, and deliberate on complex issues in a structured and inclusive environment. By creating space for informed discussion and collective reflection, Citizen Circles supports the development of considered recommendations that are grounded in public values and lived experience.

Our approach

A diverse group of 12 Essex residents was recruited to form the Panel, reflecting a broad mix of ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities, parental status, and attitudes to food and health. Participants were supported throughout by balanced expert input from public health professionals, behavioural scientists, and data on food systems. This ensured access to credible information while enabling participants to learn, question, challenge, and interpret information collectively.

Across three facilitated sessions, the group moved through a structured deliberative journey:
• Building a shared understanding of the food environment and its systemic drivers
• Interrogating and challenging prevailing narratives, including testing assumptions behind existing campaigns
• Weighing trade-offs and priorities using structured deliberation and prioritisation tools
• Reaching informed, collective agreement on future campaign direction, messaging, and areas for action

This approach enabled participants to develop informed and considered judgments through reflection and dialogue – ensuring insights and outputs were grounded in both lived experience and deliberative reasoning.

Impact

• Resident-endorsed agreement on priority campaign topics
• Consensus on the direction for a two-stage campaign approach as well as guidance for language and visual style
• Pre- and post-evaluation survey results showed that Citizen Circles increased participant knowledge and awareness, as well as the confidence that their views would influence decision-making, with agreement rising from 3.8 to 4.6 out of a maximum score of 5.