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The Foreshore is the northern shore of the Derwentwater close to Keswick. It boats stunning scenery and unrivalled views of the lake and surrounding mountains. A £1.25 million Heritage Lottery funded project to revive the Foreshore began in 2009. Our evaluation in late 2012 included a literature review, stakeholder interviews, a visitor survey to gather the views of 100 visitors and a stakeholder workshop to assess the quality of the site on completion.
A wonderful festival to celebrate the parks 100th birthday and its official reopening after a major programme of restoration funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Oldham Council. The sun shone and over 2500 people packed the park to seek out gorillas and boggarts; be thrilled by tight rope walkers and puppeteers; go home with painted faces and wearing willow crowns and enjoy a one man band, a traditional brass band and the evening finale by Biggles Band!
Recently two of our team – Becca and Kerry – spent a day at Manchester Art Gallery with our consultation stall for the work we’re doing on the Irwell Sculpture Trail. They had a fantastic spot in the main atrium at the gallery and interviewed over 50 people throughout the day.
The staff at the Manchester Art Gallery were so lovely and helpful – they’d already set up a table and chairs for us, and let us in early to set up ready for the doors to open at 10am.
We brought along the giant map of the Irwell Sculpture Trail and stuck in images of some of the sculptures. And of course, a jar of chocolate eggs always helps and is a nice way to thank people who stop to talk to us.
Find out more about the work we’re doing on the Irwell Sculpture Trail.
We are still carrying out our consultation work for Fix the Fells and have received some more great photos from our team Kate and Ellie who have been climbing the peaks to interview hikers.
Last Friday 24th June they were up Stickle Tarn – that’s 1,500 feet up and pretty chilly! Lots of friendly and cheerful interviewees, which made for a successful day.
On Saturday they headed back up Catbells in drizzle and later drove to Seathwaite Farm in Borrowdale, where they’d been the week before.
And yesterday they went into Coniston and drove up the Old Man track and set up the stall at Miner’s Bridge, interviewing people as they passed. We hear the weather was much nicer than the rain from Saturday, and even the sun came out briefly.
For the last week our fab team – Kate and Ellie – have been up mountains in the Lake District interviewing people for our Fix the Fells work. They have also been in Keswick speaking to people in the town, and have been sending us updates and great photos of what they’ve been up to.
This is undoubtedly our highest consultation ever! And check out the beautiful banner Ellie made for the consultation…
We thought it would be nice to include a few of the reports from Kate and Ellie:
Thursday 16th June 2011
We were heading for the top of Helvellyn this morning but it was pouring with rain, so we headed to the Moot Hall in Keswick. We enjoyed a trickled of interviewees there, but as soon as it brightened up we headed back out up to Catbells where we had a steady flow of people who all thought it was a good idea us being up there. Let’s hope the weather is better than forecast tomorrow! Best wishes, Kate
Saturday 18th June 2011
The cloud was down and the rain light though persistent, but many a hardy walker passed our little base at the entrance to Seathwaite Farm. Nearly all we stopped were happy to chat, despite either being keen to get on with their five-hour hikes or absolutely exhausted after returning from such exertions!
Today there is a consultation day at Oswald Road Primary School in Chorlton. They are consulting on a new vision for the school, and looking at in detail a new vision for the school playground, which is mostly tarmac.
Pathways has supported two parents to design creative consultation tools with a focus on what children want more of. Do they want more hiding? More messy play? More climbing or swinging? More muddy play?
The consultation is running all day, so if you happen to be in Chorlton do go along and have a look at what they are doing. We can’t wait to hear the results of their consultation.
If you are in the Manchester area and need support on similar projects, please get in contact with us at hello@pathwaysconsultancy.co.uk.
Last week, Steve from our team spent the week at Wicksteed Park in Northamptonshire, speaking to people about what they would to see going on in the park.
We set up a colourful stall including yellow tablecloths, lots of images, blackboards and jars of chocolate eggs. It was completed with our lovely new striped sun shade.
Find out more about the work we’re doing for the Wicksteed Park Heritage Lottery Fund Activity Plan.
Our office is undergoing a bit of a Spring clean and tidy up, and in doing so we have been looking through some of the tools we’ve created for previous work.
We came across the giant jigsaw puzzle we created for the Great Wyre Jigsaw Project – we love it so much we’ve pinned it to our office wall! The jigsaw is made from cork and was designed to be taken out onto a stall as a tool to engage with people.
Members of the public could write their likes and dislikes on flags then stick them into it.
The Great Wyre Jigsaw Project was a consultation process that we designed and delivered for Wyre Borough Council. Our team gathered the views of 2,336 people, finding out what residents felt about living in Wyre and their ideas for improving the quality of life in the area.
It was one of the largest community consultations ever carried out in Wyre and the results were written up into six accessible reports designed by our colleagues at Countryscape.
If you’d like to find out more about our consultation or engagement work, or have a project you’d like to discuss, please email us at hello@pathwaysconsultancy.co.uk.
We are doing a lovely piece of consultation and market research on the Irwell Sculpture Trail.
Soon to be relaunched, the Sculpture Trail runs from Salford Quays up to Bacup – approximately 30 miles along the River Irwell dotted with sculptures.
For our first day we were set up outside Salford Museum and Art Gallery on an incredibly hot day. Our stall, which has been lovingly designed for this piece of consultation, features bunting, pots of spring flowers, and a map of the trail.
We also set up an Easter kids activity on some picnic blankets – making Easter nests from hay and filled with chocolate eggs and a yellow chick.
Over the next couple of weeks we will be out at various locations along the Sculpture Trail to speak to people about the sculptures and find out how people find out about places – especially whether people like the idea of new technologies such as downloadable audio tours and QR codes.
Whilst we update our website we will be sharing what we’re up to here – our shiny new blog. We’ve got some exciting new pieces of work coming up during the summer and some lovely pieces of recent work to share.
We are a social research organisation based in Manchester – please take a look round, read about the work we do, and follow us on Twitter.
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