The Opportunity
Flinders Port Holdings is South Australia’s leading port operator.
In 2018 they embarked on a plan to widen the shipping channel at Outer Harbor, Port Adelaide. This was to allow larger ships, which are increasingly used by international shipping companies, to safely and efficiently access the Outer Harbor port.
Flinders Port Holdings engaged communikate to manage all stakeholder and community engagement, ensuring that relevant businesses, the media, political representatives, residents, environmental groups and community were all kept up to date with the project and were comfortable with the environmental management measures put in place.
Our Approach
We worked closely with the project team at Flinders Port Holdings to develop and implement a comprehensive stakeholder engagement program, including:
- Stakeholder identification and consideration
- Facilitating meetings between project staff from Flinders Port Holdings and key community groups, businesses, media and political representatives
- Hosting public information stalls at local shopping centres to communicate with residents and community
- Creating various communication materials and overseeing distribution to stakeholders, providing regular updates throughout the project
- Set up and running of project hotline for community members to call with questions and get project updates
- Copywriting and creating web materials for the Flinders Port Holdings project webpage
- Coordinating debriefing sessions with interested community groups and preparing debrief presentations to mark project completion
- Producing a video to summarise the project and its environmental measures, engagement activity and results, including state-of-the-art drone footage
The Outcome
Regular engagement with the community and proactively providing project updates meant concerns were addressed early and there was no backlash to the channel widening.
The phone hotline, email account, updates and information sessions gave the community an opportunity to get involved and stay informed, and this was very well received.
The approach to engaging the wider community in such a significant infrastructure project received praise from a variety of stakeholders, including the Mayor of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield.
