Visions of a water smart community: workshop at Flood and Coast

The project team held a workshop at Flood and Coast conference in Telford on Thursday 8th June, talking to delegates about the Enabling Water Smart Communities (EWSC) project, its aims, objectives and current progress.

Delegates writing down their visions for a water smart community

We wanted to talk to new audiences about the EWSC project and gain insight from attendees at Flood and Coast on what they would like to see from the project. 

Answering the question ‘wouldn’t it be fantastic if….’, delegates wrote down their visions of a water smart community and stuck them on the wall. The team then clustered the answers into similar groupings, with responses covering asset ownership, community engagement, funding, environment and biodiversity.

Delegates also worked on a ‘brain writing’ exercise. Working in small groups on one of the clusters,  delegates wrote down an idea to achieve the ‘wouldn’t it be fantastic if’, and passed around the group with each person building further on it until it was a fully formed final idea. Transparent access to comprehensive data, planning, and involvement of community groups were strong themes.

Feedback from the session was really positive and it was great to see those ideas building. The final ideas produced will be used to inform the project, and planning for what comes after the project is finished.

Thanks to all who came along and participated. Keep up to date as the project progresses and stay in touch on our website, LinkedIn and Twitter pages.