““The feedback Wellington City Council staff had was really positive. They were most happy with the quality of the presentation and the themes identified were communicated really effectively. It was quickly decided that the insights provided by the report should be communicated more widely, and used in multiple council processes, rather than just for the planning around the LTP.
One thing that stood out to me was that the style of writing/presentation was able to be well understood not only by my colleagues in the research space, but also by those in planning, policy and strategy. This speaks to how well the LTP report was able to bridge the gap between policy and science/evidence.””
Background and aims
Wellington City Council existing public engagement results for insights re-interpreted to inform planning for the 2023 Long Term Plan. Understanding the value in the information collected over successive years and wanting to ensure the best use is made of their resources, they asked Global Research to reconsider existing data, and repurpose it to tell a story about what the community thinks and feels about priorities, challenges, and opportunities for the city.
Our role
Global Research undertook the task of reviewing 26 previous public engagement reports. We needed to extract from hundreds of pages of documents the common themes reported by submitters and respondents over a range of topics and themes. The key was to extract from the most important topics for the community, and the issues that spanned multiple realms, from multiple reports.
Design and method
To undertake the re-interpretation, we visually scanned each report, noting topics or themes reported in sufficient quantity to warrant inclusion; we quickly found commonalities which, even though somewhat directed by the nature of each report’s consultation topic, stood out as issues important to Wellingtonians. The relevant sections of each engagement report were collated in a draft document, and, upon a thorough reading, summary points were developed. These were presented alongside statistics and citations from each engagement report.
Result
We found that Wellingtonians are passionate about their city, and they are most concerned that development be ‘done right’, that city living is as pleasant as it can be, and that movement about the city is easy and expeditious. There were also concerns about rising costs, including rates, and the need to make trade-offs between needs and ‘nice-to-haves’.
Outcome
Wellington City Council were delivered an attractive report with findings divided by community and strategic directives covering: urban form, culture, community, environment, economy, and the transport network (a topic which arose in sufficient quantity to warrant its own section).
The report was delivered to planning, policy and strategy teams as well as Councillors to use to inform their direct and decisions while preparing the 2023 Wellington City Council Long Term Plan. It will help to shape these important conversations as the LTP is developed, including through a deliberative process where it will be used as background information for those involved in a citizens’ assembly. This highlights how crucial it was that the report be digestible and able to be communicated to a wide audience.