by Flying Geese Consultant, Beckie Smith
Introduction
The Forest of Dean District Council produce a creative, informative, and strategic report which identifies economic and social wellbeing of the district with particular focus on the shared strengths, opportunities, and communities that each town serves and the barriers which prevent the towns from thriving.
What are we doing?
Our consultation was an approach of community focus groups, an online survey, schools workshops, one to one stakeholder interviews, online consultation sessions and a crafting exercise for children, across the community leaders, politicians, councillors, businesses & business leaders, community influencers & steering communities, service providers, their employees & service users, volunteers, labourers, residents & members of the general public, and underrepresented community groups.
We grounded the public sentiment gathered from the consultation in data gathered from a series of publications and publicly available information including Audience Agencies EAPR reports, neighbourhood development plans, Active lives data, crime statistics and Arts funding, to name a few.
Our task was to provide clarity on the unique personality, purpose and position of each market town; better understand the sentiment, challenges and opportunities of each town according to its local residents and businesses; provide information on town demographics and fully understand the motivations and deterrents for visitation to each of the market towns.
The consultation was to conclude with effective business, retail, hospitality and community safety strategies for each of the four towns as part of the District Council’s regeneration strategy.
Legacy and Impact
Our innovative regeneration recommendations united the four towns by creating a shared strategy that enabled each town to play to its strengths to overcome their shared challenges. We identified an overarching gold thread of arts heritage and culture, and silver thread of active living onto which all other sub sections of regeneration hung. The legacy of our work will see the four towns work together towards a shared vision, under the umbrella guardianship of the district council, who are adopting a rather innovative approach for the very first time.