Community Consultation: The Allander Leisure Centre
CALA Homes (West) Ltd and Stewart Milne Group Ltd
Pagoda was contracted to provide a community consultation on the future location of the Allander leisure centre to assist the consortium in the development of their masterplan for the Kilmardinny Westpark site.
Background
An initial application for outline planning permission for the development was lodged in 2004. Planning permission was granted in 2010, however, the issue of the location of the refurbished Allander Leisure Centre remained unresolved.
What we did:
• Managed stakeholder relations with all elected representatives (MPs, MSPs, and Councillors) and residents’ group.
• Circulated approximately 17,350 newsletters detailing the three possible options for the siting of the leisure centre and inviting comment.
• Developed a media plan which included advertisements and proactively briefing local media throughout the consultation process, including rebuttal of misinformation.
• Devised, prepared and organised an on-site public exhibition which ran for 3 days.
• Produced a website to provide information and offer members of the public an opportunity to feed into the consultation process online.
• Ran a free phone community consultation line for enquiries.
What we achieved for the client:
• Good attendance at the public exhibition with over 250 attendees.
• Over 2,000 responses to the consultation which identified a clear majority preference from within the community on the future siting of the leisure centre.
• Prepared a detailed report on the consultation which was used to revise the masterplan of the development which was then submitted to the Council in early 2012.
• Successful resolution of the issue that had been on-going for nearly 7 years and had been stalling future steps in the development of the Kilmardinny Westpark site
