Examples of our work

Obtaining views from local residents and the business community on a new showcase City Park

Examples of our Work - Leisure and Tourism Market Research

Background

The aim of this project was to obtain the views and opinions of local residents and businesses in Bradford on the proposed plans for a City Park featuring a Mirror Pool.

Objectives

• To understand the views and opinions of local residents and businesses to proposed plans for the Mirror Pool City Park.

• To obtain the views of immediate neighbours of the proposed Mirror Pool City Park.

• To inform the development of the initial designs and final scheme.

• To provide supporting material for a grant application.

Methodology

This project was conducted in several different stages.

Stage 1 - Inception

A detailed workplan was drawn up following meetings with members of the Project team.#

Stage 2 - Consultations on the concept

2.1 Local residents focus groups

To gauge reactions to the overall concept of the Mirror Pool City Park 6 focus groups were recruited to reflect local residents from different specified community groups. Quotas were set to ensure a broadly representative spread by age, gender, users/non users of Bradford City Centre, religion, children in household and ethnicity. All respondents were required to commit to attending both a Stage 2 focus group and a Stage 3 workshop.

2.2 Local employees workshops

A total of 40 employees with differing levels of seniority from around 20 local businesses were recruited to attend a workshop session at a city centre venue.

Stage 3- Consultation on revised designs

3.1 Local residents workshops

Two workshops of local residents recruited from the initial focus groups were run to allow consultation on the Mirror Pool City Park revised designs.

3.2 Additional local residents workshops

A further 20 residents not previously been involved in the focus groups were recruited to attend workshops. This allowed the designs to be evaluated from a fresh perspective to ensure they had widespread appeal.

3.3 Local employees workshop

40 local employees from the stage 2 workshop were recruited for a further workshop.

Stage 4 - Face to face dialogue with project neighbours

Running in conjunction with Stage 3 consultation, 25 face to face semi-structured interviews were carried out with senior employees of businesses in the immediate neighbourhood.

Outcome

The findings of this research were used to strengthen proposals for the design and use of this City Park. The resuls of the project were used in a grant application to the Big Lottery Fund 'Living Landmarks' programme submitted in May 2007.