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Harbour Hopes

Participatr was commissioned by Bristol City Council to create a digital engagement hub to support long-term public participation in creating a vision for Bristol's Western Harbour.

What was the brief?

Western Harbour is an area loved by many – the regeneration looks to balance local and city aspirations with the need to address some of the biggest challenges facing Bristol. This needs to be done while celebrating Western Harbour’s heritage and existing communities, making sure the infrastructure and Bristol’s flood defences are fit for the 21st Century, and addressing the urgent ecological and climate emergencies.

In September 2021, Bristol City Council embarked on a long-term programme of public engagement for this unique and high profile regeneration project, and sought to create a one-stop online hub to provide key project information, capture ideas, aspirations and feedback from the public and interested stakeholders across the city, and keep them updated on progress.

What did we do?

Participatr was commissioned directly by Bristol City Council to work with an in-situ consultancy team to create and maintain the online public participation hub.

The website was custom branded to match the 'Harbour Hopes' brand, which was created specifically for this project. This ensured that the website branding seamlessly integrated with printed materials, social media 'cards' and other graphics produced for the project.

Initial engagement was facilitated using Participatr's interactive ideas and opportunities maps, capturing hopes and aspirations for the regeneration of the area. Over time, several of Participatr's engagement tools were rolled out on the Harbour Hopes website across several stages of engagement since September 2021, working with several consultancy teams at various project stages. Most recently, in Spring 2025, the website was used to gather and analyse feedback on the Harbour Hopes masterplan.

The platform's embedded project email features have been used throughout the website's lifespan, capturing and organising project correspondence in Participatr's stakeholder CRM.

What was the outcome?

  • Over 10,000 visitors to the Harbour Hopes website, 59% of which visited using a mobile device (tablet or smartphone) since September 2021
  • 4,584 individuals have participated and shared their ideas, aspirations and feedback via the Harbour Hopes website, including 597 place-based comments on the interactive map
  • The website continues to be the central hub of information and public participation, as it has done since September 2021



Visit the Harbour Hopes digital platform

The Harbour Hopes digital platform

The Harbour Hopes digital platform - click to enlarge