Everton’s ‘The People’s Project’ Public Consultation Shortlisted For National Planning Award
Everton Football Club’s record-breaking public consultation for a new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock and a community-led legacy at Goodison Park has been shortlisted for a national planning industry award.
Everton, alongside integrated agency Influential and the planning and development team at property consultant CBRE, devised and delivered the engagement campaign which generated 63,000 responses and demonstrated 96% support for its plans to create a new stadium on Liverpool’s waterfront and to redevelop it current Goodison Park home.
The Club and it’s advisors has now been named as a finalist in the prestigious ‘Planning Awards 2020’ in the category of ‘Stakeholder Engagement in Planning’.
Held annually to recognise excellence in planning, regeneration, economic development and urban design, the winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on Thursday 24 September 2020.
The People’s Project pre-planning consultation engaged a large, inclusive audience across the Liverpool City Region (LCR) – in the Club’s proposals for a new 52,888 capacity stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock and an ambitious and innovative community-led legacy project at Goodison Park.
The multi-channel consultation was carried out in two phases across 2018 and 2019 and included an permanent online presence, augmented reality app, a geo-targeted social media campaign, email and postal surveys, focus groups and an ambitious touring exhibition, including a virtual reality experience, which visited 21 locations and attracted more than 18,000 people.
The campaign has been heralded by experts as the largest public consultation in the City of Liverpool’s history, with valuable lessons for future projects.
Professor Denise Barrett-Baxendale, Chief Executive at Everton Football Club, said: “This nomination is testament to the planning and hard work put into what is widely being acknowledged as an ‘exemplar public consultation’.
“As well as engaging our own supporters on the streets of Merseyside, we also gave our global fanbase the chance to have their say online. We were equally delighted with the response received from non-Evertonians and non-football fans, who showed their support for both developments and understood the transformational socio-economic benefits The People’s Project would have on our city region.
“I’d like to thank Influential and CBRE who worked as an integral part of our New Stadium and Communications and Engagement teams. Their strategic advice and on-the-ground support proved incredibly valuable as we worked together to deliver a robust, creative, transparent and engaging public and stakeholder consultation.”
Following the comprehensive consultation, Everton Football Club’s detailed plans for a new stadium on Liverpool’s north docks were submitted to Liverpool City Council in December 2019, followed by an outline application for the community-led redevelopment of Goodison Park in April 2020.
Both applications will be determined by Liverpool City Council at the same time later this year.
The People’s Project was named the ‘Best Property and Construction Campaign’ at the Northern Marketing Awards 2019 and is also a finalist for ‘Marketing Campaign of the Year’ in the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Awards 2020.
