Woodberry Down Consultation

Working with a community to achieve positive change

When the time-expired North London Woodberry Down estate was designated for wholesale redevelopment and urban densification it was apparent that this process would involve major changes and potential disruption for the existing residents of the estate.  It was therefore essential that they should be consulted in depth and be given genuine opportunities to have a say in what those changes should be.  A major public consultation exercise was therefore initiated by the London Borough of Hackney and organized by Matrix Partnership on their behalf to run concurrently with the outline design process. 

 An active programme of public consultation was therefore put in hand so that the community could have a meaningful dialogue with the Council and its consultants on the future of Woodberry Down.  This involved working with existing community groups, stakeholders and residents, and it was achieved through a carefully devised programme of exhibition and consultation events.  Easy communication was essential to this process, and so, in addition to a fixed drop-in base, a touring exhibition set up in a specially adapted trailer moved around the estate on a predetermined schedule.  Social media and newsletters were also used to ensure that as many people as possible were engaged in the redevelopment planning process that would inevitably result in some degree of inconvenience.  Nonetheless a carefully phased programme of relocation was drawn up in order to minimise the necessity for double house moves.

 The public engagement exercise has proved to be very positive, and local residents were supportive of the changes once the benefits of the change were explained to them, including the substantial upgrading of their accommodation and community facilities.