CLIENT
Liverpool City Council
Liverpool 8: Creating Space for Communities
CAMPAIGN
By combining community engagement, inclusive communications and strategic storytelling, we helped Liverpool City Council create a more collaborative approach to shaping the future of Toxteth Reservoir.
The programme created a framework for meaningful engagement that prioritised collaboration over consultation, ensuring insight from local communities could inform decision-making and helping strengthen trust between the Council and residents.
The campaign also generated positive regional media coverage, raising awareness of the programme and reinforcing Liverpool City Council’s commitment to transparent, community-led regeneration.
The results
The brief
Communities in L8, including African and Caribbean communities, Asian and non-Asian Muslim residents, and local business owners, were understandably wary of change after years of feeling unheard. To rebuild trust and ensure local voices shaped the programme, Coldr developed a community-first engagement strategy.
Approach
Our work included:
Programme management and stakeholder coordination across council teams and community partners.
Stakeholder mapping and a pre-engagement plan aligned to project milestones, ensuring engagement landed in a culturally fluent way and avoided unintended harm.
Interviews and workshops with community leaders, schools, healthcare organisations and businesses to surface concerns and opportunities.
A trauma-informed engagement approach respecting the area's history and need for culturally sensitive communications.
An integrated communications strategy to sustain engagement throughout the programme.
A findings report shared with council officers and community stakeholders, capturing what was learned through engagement and ensuring those insights informed decision-making beyond the immediate project team.
Ongoing guidance to the Council on inclusive communications, helping officers explain complex proposals transparently and in a community-centred way.