Community Think were approached to lead a process in partnership with the Rodney Local Board, Ngāti Manuhiri and Motu Design (the core project group) to collect community voices to inform the Warkworth Town Centre Plan.

We worked with community leaders to map out the key community stakeholders and understand the best ways to reach them. Broad activations focused on the whole town; including a Festival of Ideas held in the town hall, a custom board game that locals could check out from the library, and an online platform. For those groups we identified as having barriers to participating in these activations, we worked with them to hold smaller and more targeted workshops.

We held a meaning making session based on the main themes surfaced from the engagement, and then worked with the urban designer to transform the ideas into designs. We then went back to the community and did guided a walks around the areas in the community where ideas might be activated to present back visually the community’s ideas. Further feedback was gathered for the urban designer to incorporate into the centre plan.

We worked alongside the newly formed Epuni Fairfield Community Group, and supported two local community activators to build a community-led plan for Epuni Fairfield. Engaging in table talks with people, co-creating a plan and establishing a community organisation that will turn this into action.