`Local consultation', `community involvement', and `partnership' are terms that are assuming increasing prominence in the discourse on urban regeneration. The actual substance of such labels is unclear, but with the increasing diffusion of City Challenge and similar initiatives it is likely that `people-related' themes will be a particular concern for policy-makers in these contexts. Drawing on my experience as a consultant on a project that aimed to operationalise such notions through an exercise designed to elicit the needs of young people in a City Challenge area, this paper examines the ways in which political issues suffuse the research process in contexts like this. Three key issues are examined: how the political priorities of policy-makers impinge upon the conduct of research from the pre-fieldwork stage to well beyond the conclusion of the project; the difficulties experienced in convincing gatekeepers of the efficacy of novel research methods (drama was used in the project); and the importance of the micro-political aspects of research. It is argued that political processes saturate all aspects of projects of this kind, but such processes can be actively negotiated and managed by researchers, and in a manner that tempers the `natural scientific' predilections of research sponsors.