Boultham Park

Project Overview

Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), the aim of the Boultham Park scheme was to revitalise a park loved by local residents, restoring features and driving local investment by developing new facilities. The project was procured in association with both the City of Lincoln Council and Linkage Trust, a Lincolnshire-based charity supporting people with learning disabilities. Casey delivered a new educational facility which offered specialist provision focused on independence and employability skills. The campus is full of the latest learning technology such as speech recognition software and has fantastic purpose-built facilities for Hospitality, Catering, Horticulture, Small Animal Care, and Personal and Social Development courses. The project also incorporates a new café to be run by Linkage Trust Charity Team, allowing profits to be invested back into their education facilities. The café along with the other areas provide valuable new infrastructure for the local community, stimulating inward investment and giving people with special learning needs the opportunity to be trained and integrated into local communities while obtaining work experience.

Client & local resident communication

Prior to project commencement we held a ‘Meet the Team’ Event. Local residents and project stakeholders such as The Boultham Park Advisory Group, Heritage Team and Park Event Coordinators were invited to an Open Day where our team, in conjunction with the Council and Linkage, provided an insight into the works to be completed and performed an open Q&A session. Residents were introduced to our Site Manager and advised to contact them if they had any questions about the ongoing works.

Throughout the project, our team produced newsletters which kept all stakeholders up to date on progress, maintaining positive relationships with local residents who were potentially disrupted during the works. In order to reach as many members of the community as possible with real-time project updates, we set up dedicated Facebook and Twitter pages for the scheme. Our Liaison Officer used the social media channels to share photos of ongoing works, stories of community involvement on the scheme such as work experience placements and advise areas of the park we were working, highlighting any pedestrian diversions to usual routes. We also encouraged two-way feedback, inviting local stakeholders to ask questions about the scheme, generating interest and excitement about the restoration project.