Background and aims
In 2017, Melbourne Water undertook a deliberative consultation process on behalf of the Victorian Government to inform the development of a strategic plan for the Yarra River. The process was titled ‘Imagine the Yarra’ and was conducted in two phases:
Phase one of Imagine the Yarra involved a variety of engagement initiatives which gathered 1,200 contributions reflecting community aspirations for the iconic river.
Phase two focused on the development of the Yarra Strategic Plan, a process that will be informed by outcomes from the Imagine the Yarra consultation.
Melbourne Water hosted a variety of community events in October 2017 to gather feedback on matters of significance to the Yarra River. This unique consultation process garnered responses in a number of formats, from video submissions, to drawings, and written submissions. This enabled people of all ages to contribute in the ways most convenient to them.
Our role
Global Research collated feedback gathered through the wide variety of engagement methods: video submissions, hand-drawn pictures, photographs, comments, Facebook conversations, stories, submissions and emails. Feedback was converted to consistent formats to enable synthesis and analysis that formed the basis of reporting.
Design and method
Global Research converted feedback to text and analysed consultation data using NVivo qualitative analysis software. This enabled the 2,500 unique ideas from 1,200 respondents to be organised by theme, and by separate reaches of the river. Ideas were tagged to particular sections of the Yarra River: general river, inner city, suburban, lower rural and upper rural. This enabled information specific to each area to be reported on in an informative way. Images and quotes were included in reports to illustrate key ideas.
Result
Engagement data was synthesised and analysed to reveal key themes which were reported back to Melbourne Water in summary form. This report informed the next stage of the engagement process which involves developing the Yarra Strategic Plan.
Outcome
Imagine the Yarra is an ongoing consultation process. The project can be viewed at www.imaginetheyarra.com.au