ITS and Stonbury collaborate on community engagement with South Staffs Water for new build reservoir scheme.
Ahead of work beginning on site, Stonbury and South Staffs embarked on a community engagement programme with local residents. The reservoir is close to housing, and concerns had been expressed during the planning process that lorries entering and leaving the site would have a negative impact on local roads which serve a primary school and children’s nursery, and which regularly experience congestion at peak times.
South Staffs Water pro-actively engaged with the local residents and the nearby primary school leading up to construction to ensure everyone was informed and given the opportunity to raise concerns. The project delivery team also set up a community portal system, enabling members of the public to follow progress of the scheme and to communicate directly with the delivery team, express concerns and ask questions.
Keeping local communities informed through a community portal has proved beneficial; especially larger schemes close to housing. As well as providing a level of transparency that can defuse potentially contentious situations, it gave Stonbury the chance to keep local people informed of changes to schedules, and to take on board constructive suggestions informed by local knowledge that will help to do a better job.
Feedback on the portal led directly to changes being made during the works programme. Early in the project, for instance, concerns were expressed about the number of lorries making deliveries to the site at peak times. As a direct consequence, the timings were changed to spread lorry journeys through the day.
Read more about the Community Portal and the build of Outwoods Reservoir.