Facilitating the East Midlands Combined County Authority mayor’s big transport conversation

Context & need

The East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) required support to deliver its first-stage consultation on the draft Transport Plan vision and principles. This needed to reach a broad and diverse audience across Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, capturing views from residents, stakeholders and underrepresented groups.

There was a need to define a clear, structured engagement approach from the outset which aimed to establish who to engage, how best to reach them, and which methods would generate meaningful, balanced insights. EMCCA also required support to ensure the consultation aligned with best practice to reach underheard voices which would provide a robust, evidence-led foundation to inform the development of the Transport Plan.

How we delivered the consultation

ITP worked with EMCCA to design and deliver a comprehensive, multi-channel consultation strategy. This included stakeholder mapping, refinement of an online questionnaire, and developing a programme of 20 exhibitions, six focus groups, and three workshops. We designed consistent consultation materials with our in-house graphics capabilities, including a 56-page discussion document and supporting assets. ITP co-delivered the consultation with EMCCA colleagues, where:

• Our team led six focus groups, including on-street recruitment with our fieldwork partner, moderation, and analysis to capture in-depth qualitative insights.
• ITP’s facilitation experts developed workshops for stakeholders and transport partners, using structured and futures-based approaches.
• Drawing on experience from projects such as Bus Champions, the team delivered effective engagement at exhibitions, connecting with members of the public and encouraging participation across locations.
• ITP managed the survey platform and analysed the responses, providing live insights and using Power BI to explore trends and nuance. Thematic analysis was undertaken to create insight from over 5000 open-answer responses.

The impact

The consultation achieved strong levels of engagement across the region, exceeding typical benchmarks for this type of consultation exercise. Just under 6000 survey responses were generated from residents, stakeholders and organisations. 41 focus group participants ensured those less frequently represented in consultations were heard – all of these participants had not heard of the Transport Plan, or EMCCA in some cases, before joining a focus group. Across the workshop sessions, 45 organisations were involved from diverse industry and community perspectives.

This provided EMCCA with a comprehensive and balanced evidence base to inform the next stage of Transport Plan development with insights into priorities, challenges and opportunities.