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Craigavon Borough Council has recently appointed Enventure to undertake engagement and research borough wide in a bid to increase recycling and reduce contamination.  The work, which will start at the end of January, is the first win for Enventure in Northern Ireland.

The Council, which has a recycling rate of 37%, already has in place an established fortnightly recycling collection system across the Borough, which is available to all of it 39,000 households, but participation in the scheme varies.  The aim of the project is to speak to residents to ensure they understand the scheme and provide help and advice where needed.  The project will also gather residents’ opinions on a number of recycling related issues to help develop services in the future.

Commenting on the win, Matthew Thurman said “We are really looking forward to working with Craigavon Council.  Residents in the borough have access to an excellent recycling scheme and we will be helping residents to make the most of it by giving advice and support through the doorstepping engagement work”. 

Enventure recently completed of a successful programme of consultation with residents and businesses across the Braintree District.  Enventure was commissioned by Braintree District Council to consult with residents and businesses to understand their priorities, needs and expectations of their Council and its services. 

Residents and businesses in Halstead, Witham and Braintree have been having their say about what they think needs improving in the area to ensure A Corporate Strategy 2012-16 reflects the views and opinions of local residents and businesses.

Enventure’s Research Manager, Dr Joanne Harvatt, conducted the consultation during October and November 2011.  The programme included:

• A residents’ online and postal survey – involving over 1,000 residents and over 100 businesses across the Braintree District
• Five focus groups with residents to discuss issues in more depth
• Two focus groups with businesses operating across the District

The consultation was positively received by residents and businesses alike, with the following feedback received from a local business representative:

 "Joanne has proven a skilful and sympathetic facilitator during local government business focus groups.  She has dealt with the diverse business participants with a good degree of empathy and understanding"

The findings of the consultation are now being used by Braintree District Council to inform the development of their Corporate Strategy 2012-16.  Enventure’s research report will be made available on the Braintree District Council website early in 2012.

Enventure is currently working with NHS Kirklees to evaluate its new health campaign, encouraging parents to think about their drinking and the impact that it can have on their children and coping with family life.

The campaign, called ‘Think about your Drinking’ was developed by NHS Kirklees based on initial scoping research provided by Enventure earlier this year.  The research found that a campaign targeting parents, focusing on the affect drinking can have on their children, could potentially have the biggest impact on changing drinking behaviours and, perhaps more importantly, encouraging people to really start to think about their drinking habits.

Parents who drink regularly or drink too much in one sitting can end up behaving differently around their children, and research shows that children learn about drinking from their parents and family from a young age. The ‘Think about your Drinking’ campaign was launched on Friday 2 December in Huddersfield with a street theatre event, and includes a poster and advertising campaign, website and Facebook page.

Enventure is now carrying out an evaluation of this campaign by conducting on street interviews with Huddersfield residents to find out what they think to the campaign and whether it encourages them to think about their drinking habits, particularly in the run up to Christmas. It addition to the on street survey, Enventure will also be recruiting residents to take part in a ‘Research Collective’ where respondents are involved in a four week programme of research, including depth interviews, completing drinking diaries, responding to text and picture messages, and taking part in Facebook discussions.

The findings of this evaluation research will be used to help NHS Kirklees understand the success of the campaign and whether this kind of approach would be suitable to be rolled out to other areas of the district.

Enventure has recently been commissioned to once again work with Leeds City Council to carry out a visitor survey at all its museums and galleries. It has been four years since the last visitor survey, and in that time Leeds has acquired new sites – Leeds City Museum and the Discovery Centre – making this piece of research vital to discover who customers are and what their impressions and experience are of the service they receive.

Enventure is carrying out exit interviews with visitors at eight museums and galleries which, in total, receive almost 800,000 visitors each year. Random sampling will be employed to ensure a representative sample of visitors is achieved.

The information gained from this research will be used by Leeds City Council to help them improve the museum service, enable greater understanding of who visitors are and their motivation to visit, grow visitor numbers, attract ‘harder to reach’ audiences and tailor marketing planning and promotion to target audiences.   

Enventure has a wealth of experience undertaking surveys with residents and tenants, so if you have a STAR survey you are planning to carry out, then please give Enventure a call!

Call Enventure on 01274 662182

Gloucestershire Waste Partnership has recently been successful in securing funding from Defra’s Household Reward and Recognition Fund to trial an incentive scheme to increase recycling.  Gloucestershire’s scheme, called Community Reward Incentive Scheme (CRIS), will be trialled in Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stroud and Tewkesbury and will start in March 2012 and finish in November 2012. 

Enventure has been commissioned to undertake the research and evaluation part of the project, which has started with a residents’ survey, participation monitoring and focus groups.  Findings from the first phase of research will help develop the project.  Early 2013, the project will be evaluated using the same research approach.

Commenting on the recent win, Mark Robinson of Enventure said “We are really excited to be working on one of the projects funded through Defra’s Household Reward and Recognition Fund and to be working with the Partnership once again.  This project will be a really interesting project to work on and will provide some interesting insight into how community incentives will help increase recycling levels.”

Related Links:

News Story - Effective engagement with Cheltenham Residents

Case Study - Support for Gloucester's Food Waste Collection Scheme Rollout

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council has recently commissioned Enventure to undertake its Residents’ Survey which will provide baseline monitoring of issues reflected in the Council’s 2030 Vision.   Residents are currently being asked questions on safety & crime, the local area, volunteering, public transport, internet use, and why they live in the district.

A mixture of telephone interviews with residents over 25, and face to face interviews with 16 -24 year olds, to ensure a true representation is achieved, are being carried out thoughout November.

With the arrival of new students each year, Cheshire West and Chester Council wanted to ensure that its new residents knew as much as possible about their waste and recycling collections.  With previous experience of working with students, Enventure was commissioned by Cheshire West & Chester Council to undertake intensive doorstepping in the Garden Lane area of the city.  The team of experienced doorstepping staff will speak to students, provide information on what can and can’t be recycled, and ensure they understand that waste should only be presented on the day of collection.  It is hoped that these messages will reduce instances of flytipping which have on occasions, caused problems in the area.

Commenting on the new piece of engagement work, Mark Robinson, Managing Director said “We are really looking forward to working with Cheshire West and Chester Council again.  Our team of experienced engagement staff are very keen to make a start talking to students on their doorsteps and at the fresher’s fair."

Braintree District Council is currently developing its draft Strategy which will identify its Key Priorities for 2012-2016.  This will replace the existing Strategy which covers 2008-2012.  Before the Strategy is debated at Member level, Braintree District Council wishes to consult with residents to find out what is important now and in the future to them so that the future Strategy reflects residents’ priorities.

The consultation covers issues including local economy, healthy lifestyles, environment, transport, jobs and crime. 

Commenting on the recent win, Joanne Harvatt, Research Manager said “We are really pleased to be working on this project and hope the findings fully support the development of the new Strategy”. 

The consultation involves an online survey, postal survey and focus groups throughout the district.

City of York Council has employed the services of Enventure to carry out a campaign of door to door public engagement with its residents in order to promote their recycling services. The council wishes to increase the overall rate of recycling and therefore needs to target lower performing areas of the city to ensure that residents understand how to use the scheme and investigate any potential barriers they might have, including their containers and storage space issues.

The campaign targets over 15,000 households across the city. A team of nine interviews are currently out in York speaking with residents and encouraging them to recycle using the services available to them. The team will also be promoting Zero Waste York, a local initiative aimed at promoting waste minimisation. 

In addition to the door face to face engagement, the council has also commissioned Enventure to carry out a series of focus groups with York residents to investigate further the issues surrounding containers and storage space in order to make recycling as easy as possible for residents living in properties where these things could be a barrier to participation in the recycling scheme. These properties include those living in terraced housing and within the city walls.