Rebecca Lockwood Norris is the Senior Development Officer in Wiltshire Council’s Economy and Regeneration Service, where she is the lead officer for the Wiltshire Towns Programme.
With a Higher National Diploma in Civil Engineering from UWE, and APM’s Project Management Qualification, Rebecca has over two decades of experience working in the public and voluntary sectors, leading projects to better support and empower communities.
As part of the Programme, Calvium has been working with Rebecca to develop Wiltshire Council’s digital placemaking offering through the creation of the Explore Wiltshire app and Events Wiltshire website.
In this interview, Rebecca shares how Wiltshire has used digital technologies to meet some of its place-based goals, and why accessibility has been key to meeting the diverse needs of the community and creating more vibrant places.
What are the primary goals of the council’s current regeneration and economic strategy, and how do Explore Wiltshire and Events Wiltshire align with the strategy?
The purpose of our economic strategy is to improve the economic resilience of local high streets, which is one of the core threads of our business plan to create and support vibrant town centres. This is through attracting investment, supporting local businesses and town councils and encouraging local spend.
The two products that we have will support the delivery of economic wellbeing across Wiltshire. It is a holistic package of support for town centres, and that includes supporting the visitor economy and cultural offer, which I like to say is the fun to be had in Wiltshire.
How are you using place-based digital technologies to enhance the visitor experience while supporting local businesses and the wider community?
We need communication tools to make sure that people know about what’s happening in Wiltshire – arts, culture, local businesses – which is a major contributing factor to local economic resilience and regeneration.
The Place Experience Platform (PEP), which the trails app and the events website are built on, does what it says on the tin – it’s place and it’s experience – so when we saw that we needed to communicate the stories of the assets that we have in our towns, we initially commissioned the Explore Wiltshire heritage trails app to help people to find and navigate the heritage in our market towns.
We also wanted to ensure that visitors (residents, locals and tourists) have somewhere to find out about things to do. The two went hand in hand because the trails app was developed with an events function, so it was about taking that really strong connection with place through the trails and teasing out the events that happen in those locations too.
We created the progressive web app using the back-end of the trails app, which allows organisations hosting events and activities in Wiltshire to list and promote them in one convenient place. Because it’s also powered by PEP, it’s an accessible and secure format, just like the trails app.
In what ways does Explore Wiltshire contribute to fostering a sense of identity and pride within the town(s) it serves?
The app is helping visitors to discover the people and events, past and present, associated with the built environment and the communities that shape the history and the landscapes of Wiltshire.
There’s curated content, which is put together with each respective town council and sometimes with other community groups – heritage groups, for example – so it encompasses their viewpoint and identity at that local level. I think the more local you get, the more pride there is in a place because people like to celebrate what’s great about where they are.
How do Explore Wiltshire and Events Wiltshire support the council’s objectives for driving footfall, boosting local commerce, and encouraging repeat visits?
Looking at the benefits that the heritage and arts and culture offers our local economy, we saw there was a gap in how we communicate these and that led on to defining the projects to respond to those gaps.
Through communicating the place experience in Wiltshire, we’re supporting town centres to be more vibrant, encouraging visitors into towns and getting them to come in more often and stay for longer. As a result, footfall is boosted and we anticipate people will spend a little bit more money if they’re there for longer or more often. That will give us more resilient town centres.
A secondary effect (because it’s beyond economy and region but still falls within the remit of Wiltshire Council) is the improved wellbeing of residents. If they’re getting out into our towns more often and for longer, they’re going to have increased physical activity and social interactions.
What role does digital innovation, exemplified by Explore Wiltshire and Events Wiltshire, play in making the town(s) more competitive in attracting tourists, residents, and investment?
The products, as marketing tools, allow discovery of the curated information in a convenient, accessible way, and that’s there for everybody to access because it’s digital – whether local residents or people from outside the area. It allows us to communicate what our market towns have to offer, so we’re showcasing our county to both tourists and investors, and also letting residents know about what’s available to them locally.
How has Wiltshire Council worked with local stakeholders, such as businesses, cultural institutions, and residents, to ensure Explore Wiltshire and Events Wiltshire reflect the unique character and needs of the community?
Returning to the importance of local identity and pride, we have developed the events platform with a user group that’s made up of town council and event venue staff. These stakeholders in particular took part in testing for the first iteration of the progressive web app, the events site, and their feedback was taken into consideration as final iterations were developed.
Another element was something done internally at Wiltshire Council prior to the user testing; we engaged with our carers and disability staff network so that we can ensure the venue accessibility tags for event listings are comprehensive and inclusive. Alongside assigning categories to events such as ‘food and drink’ or ‘arts and culture’, we have added tags so people can clearly see if there’s disabled parking, a working hearing loop or quiet space, for example.
The Events Wiltshire website enables visitors to filter events by accessibility features.
What metrics or indicators will you use to measure the success of Explore Wiltshire and Events Wiltshire in contributing to the town’s economic growth and regeneration efforts?
Our primary measure of the response to the various projects in the Wiltshire Towns programme is footfall, which includes the volume of footfall and dwell time. We can also look at the specific town centre events – annual festivals, monthly markets, seasonal events – and see whether they’ve had a positive impact on footfall and dwell time. This involves monitoring where visitors have come from, which allows us to see how it’s altering behaviour and vacancy rates.
The connection with the experience and the PEP/digital products is that if we’ve got more people in our town centres, and the vibrancy is greater and there’s more happening, then that’s going to support the existing businesses. It should also bring new businesses and new investment into the town centres.
How has using digital technology supported accessibility, and enabled more people to access and enjoy activities in the county?
Accessibility has been woven into every aspect of the project. The design of the product through the PEP incorporates accessibility in terms of user ability and also venue accessibility. Then, applying our comprehensive accessibility guidelines in the development of the product, we’ve enabled all visitors and locals to have access to more information about place-based activity in the county.
Were there any surprises along the way?
Working on Explore Wiltshire Events was my first time working on a digital product development project, and so leading that I learned lots of new terminology and about new processes and features that are included in digital tools. These are things you just take for granted when you’re using it, but understanding what goes into that has been quite a learning curve for me. I’ve been supported by a project team of subject matter experts, both from other Wiltshire Council service areas and from Calvium, which is absolutely essential.
One surprise was the timescales needed to set up the domain and the work behind that for the web app. So I had no knowledge of what this was, and it was just a discovery towards the end of the development phase. Every time I speak to Calvium I learn something new on the technical side.
What has worked particularly well, what have been the successes? Do you have any advice for others in a similar position?
Really good collaboration and being open and honest about any limited knowledge is key. Having regular meetings between project stakeholders, even if they’re only a five to 10-minute catch up, have been really helpful in this project. Those conversations help to identify any gaps in the technical or process knowledge, and can challenge the assumptions that limit those surprises.
If we hadn’t been having the meetings, I would have discovered a lot later on that an extra couple of weeks was needed for the domain work, and it could have been a difficult situation if the launch was ready to go but publishing happened at a later date than planned. I was very honest with everybody about not knowing all the technicalities, so even if you think I might know it, just say it because you won’t know until you say.
Thank you Rebecca for sharing your experience and insight with us!