Willoughby City Council A Decade of Digital Engagement

The platform helped capture and consolidate more than 6,000 comments, thoughts, and ideas from the Lower North Shore of Sydney community during Council’s multi-faceted strategic community planning initiative.

Willoughby City Council Community Engagement Specialist, Tania Stark, says Council delivered a range of activities across the city through a phased approach, with the support of ThinkPlace engagement consultants.

Tania says Council received another 700 individual comments from community members who participated during the public exhibition period and contributed ideas.

“Bang The Table [now part of Granicus] was very helpful in setting up a hub page on Have your Say Willoughby to connect the various project pages used through the phased process. We also used the hub to connect all of the complex and technical planning strategies for housing, local centres, and industrial lands in the lead up to potential development control changes, providing a single source of information for our community.”

This year, Willoughby City Council celebrates a decade of online community connectivity through EngagementHQ, and today has over 7,000 registered online participants.

“It’s not for everybody, of course, but having a dedicated platform gives us and users oversight across all our consultation projects and consistency in our engagement approach. Teamed with engaging interactions in places where people congregate such as libraries, local centres, the mall, and existing events, and good communication and social media campaigns, it’s a great way to maximise participation in engagement activities.”

The flexibility offered by Have Your Say Willoughby has also helped strengthen community confidence in Council.

“We have evolved with the emerging engagement preference of our community and adapted to a suite of online engagement techniques. Combined with extensive social media campaigns, our community is more aware of Council’s efforts to encourage participation in decision-making.”

As well as participating in surveys, locals are increasingly comfortable using the mapping tool for place-making, and uploading photos on topics such as streetscape design and car parking.

Council staff members have also found unique ways to interact with Have Your Say participants. “Recently, one of our officers involved in a bicycle route improvement plan filmed himself riding the route and uploaded the footage to the platform,” Tania says. “He showed the traffic and where and how calming measures would make a difference. It was a great way to explain the project on the ground.”

Tania says EngagementHQ has helped Council stay connected to its community during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Keep it simple. It’s easy to get carried away testing all of the elements of a project or issue which can discourage participation.”