North Barnes Farm,
Welbeck Land

Appointed as project lead on a new settlement proposal in Lewes District, East Sussex to devise a hearts and minds campaign to educate, inform and persuade, to generate stakeholder and wider public support for a new sustainable and walkable small market town through the local plan process.

Worked with the landowner, strategic land promoter and wider project team to guide the vision, positioning, offer and messaging hierarchy before developing the communications strategy to target different stakeholders using different mediums, with clearly defined and evidenced based messaging delivered in creative, emotive and engaging ways. A particular focus was placed on garnering support from young people, who are overwhelmingly in favour of new development through collaboration with Just Build Homes and Priced Out.

Key Responsibilities:
Strategic Advice: Acted as joint lead consultant on the new settlement in West Sussex
Engagement and Comms Strategy: Devised a strategy for one-to-one and small group engagement to dispel myths propagated by an anti-group and to educate on the merits of new settlements in helping to solve the housing, environmental and emerging food crisis, to establish key advocates 
Collaborations & Partnerships: Created the North Barnes Farm Partnership to bring together strategic advisors and ‘friends’ to drive the project forward, and to ensure a wide range of voices and interest were heard. Partners include The Plunkett Foundation.
Content Creation: Developed a Place Manifesto that outlined key Place Principles and Pledges that demonstrated that there is a desperate need to do things differently to bring forward much needed homes to ensure better outcomes for local people and the environment. Created a series of short films designed to change the conversation at a local and national level and engage different demographics
Reputation Management: Worked with prominent landowner (leading private school) to counter significant negativity around the project, dealing with all major broadsheets and TV channels to manage the narrative. Delivered a hearts and minds campaign to win over the governing body, pupils, parents and ex-pupils to educate and encourage advocacy.

Creative: bBelief Studio
Website: Paul Summerfield

www.northbarnesfarm.co.uk

“Karen is a first-class Strategic Marketing Consultant, and it has been a pleasure working with her on several challenging projects in the field of strategic land promotion. Her skill set and expertise goes much further than marketing advice with a superb ability to engage with a wide range of stakeholders. She led two large Hearts and Minds campaigns for me forming relationships with stakeholders and generating supporters for controversial and challenging projects.

In addition to devising hearts and minds campaigns and working with external stakeholders she effectively and efficiently managed the ‘in-house’ team. Her attention to detail and branding concepts are first-class and impactful. A hardworking and dedicated marketing professional I can highly recommend Karen when it comes to strategic marketing advice, stakeholder engagement and project management”.

Damon Turner, Partner, Strategic Land