Client: The London Borough of Newham (LBN) and Populo Living

The Carpenters Estate built in the 1960s is an important part of Newham, its history matters to Carpenters and Newham residents. The estate has been through a turbulent time of ‘stop-start’ regeneration over the last 15-20 years. The new Mayor and LBN have been looking at ways to preserve its character and identity, to regenerate the estate and retain its strong community values. Populo Living and LBN have been working at pace on a robust, resident-led masterplan for the regeneration of the Carpenters Estate.

I lead a small team of creatives and strategist on the project. We were asked to help create a Messaging plan & Comms plan for the Carpenters regeneration stakeholder engagement. We worked directly with the team at Populo to ensure the planning and messaging would resonate with the complex stakeholder map.

Working closely with Populo and LBN teams, we co-created a core narrative and the key engagement messages. We created a messaging matrix/ platform which worked for a number of planned communication materials, aimed at the varied and complex stakeholder audience.

We then produced key documents for the different types of estate residents and right to returners. We worked across various channels including: providing a social media listening service; producing key stakeholder documents and packs – including theLBN housing and landlord offer; a series of audience segmented postcards (DM) and letters from the Mayor and Chief Exec of LBN throughout the engagement period; identity badges; window posters. As official communications from LBN, the documents and postcards were based on the LBN brand, we made the best use of  flexibility in the guidelines to maximise impact. This was all driving towards acheiving a Yes vote in the estate regeneration Ballot which took place in November 2021.

The result – Local residents voted in favour of the Carpenters Estate restoration and regeneration plans, with a turnout at 66.5%, of which 73% voted yes to the regeneration. A positive and resounding move forward, all helped by amazing engagement.