Design and delivery of community and stakeholder engagement to support the preparation of a draft environmental impact statement for a high profile development project.
Situation Explained
In 2016, Walker Group Holdings engaged Leisa Prowse Consulting to provide strategic advice, community and stakeholder engagement, and communications support for the proposed Toondah Harbour development Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Our role on this project continued until late 2021.
The proposed $1.39 billion Toondah Harbour development project aims to enhance the tourism and economic growth potential for the Redlands Coast and Moreton Bay region, and create a vibrant bayside community destination with foreshore access.
Leisa Prowse Consulting led the design and delivery of the community and stakeholder engagement process. The process was designed to build community understanding of the environmental assessment, identify community issues, concerns and sentiment, and capture input to inform the environmental assessment process.
To deliver the engagement process the Leisa Prowse Consulting team worked closely with Walker’s project team, as well as a range of technical consultants to understand and communicate the key issues, while working independently in the community to capture sentiment and opinions about the project.
The proposed development, and associated master plan, has attracted considerable interest from community members, business and the media since it was first announced in 2014. With some community and environment groups actively campaigning against the project, the team worked hard to extend the reach of engagement activities so that the project team could hear from a broad range of community members.
Our Approach
Our team developed a comprehensive and far reaching Community and Stakeholder Engagement Strategy and Action Plan. Initially, this Action Plan included a blend of face-to-face engagement activities. However, Covid-19 restrictions during 2020 required the Action Plan to adapt to include a range of innovative online activities.
Leisa Prowse Consulting delivered a range of engagement activities including:
- 34 unadvertised pop-up Listening Posts across Redland City
- 2 face-to-face community drop-in session in the local area
- 6 online Talk Toondah community drop-in sessions
- 2 meetings with 3 Technical Focus Groups which were established to explore particular technical elements of the environmental assessment including Coastal Processes and Water Quality, Koala, and Wetlands and Shorebirds
- meetings with key stakeholders
- staffing a telephone hotline and project email address
Leisa Prowse Consulting also helped prepare initial community updates, fact sheets and project website updates.
Results
Leisa Prowse Consulting, in collaboration with Walker’s project team, navigated multiple complexities during the delivery of the engagement process, successfully managing emerging issues and capturing input to inform the draft EIS.
Between 2016 and 2021 we connected with 5,735 community members and stakeholders. This included connections made during engagement activities delivered prior to and during the release of the draft EIS guidelines and during the preparation of the draft EIS.
The engagement activities captured input that provided real insight into the diverse expectations of a broad range of community members in relation to the project.
As part of the project we analysed the captured input and prepared a comprehensive report, that will form part of the draft EIS.