CREATING A STRATEGY TOGETHER

Clarity’s client-centred approach to interpretive planning means that we will deliver a plan that works for you in the real world, because it was developed with your involvement at every stage. We focus on three fundamental elements: your objectives, your site(s), your audience.

Our plans enable our clients to:
– Ensure their key messages are communicated
– Engage people with the heritage of their site(s)
– Manage visitor behaviour
– Select the interpretive media that are right for their audience
– Prioritise what’s important about their site(s)
– Make the best use of financial resources

The scope of our plans can cover a single site, a wider landscape or a whole region. We can provide plans for the conservation, heritage, zoo and tourism sectors.

The planning process we go through with our clients can encompasses a range of different services:

– Visitor survey
– Audience development
– Client and stakeholder consultation (workshops, meetings, questionnaires)
– Interpretive asset survey
– Audits of existing interpretation
– Community engagement planning
– Guidance on provision for disabled visitors
– Advice on combatting site mis-use and vandalism

Clients are consulted at all stages – information gathering, analysis and plan writing. The key output of the process will be an action plan consisting of costed delivery projects to put your vision in place.

SELECTED CASE STUDIES:

Valley of Visions

The Medway Gap is a unique landscape full of fascinating and varied interpretive resources – nationally important wildlife sites, iconic Neolithic monuments and a rich industrial heritage. In our largest interpretive planning project so far, we worked in partnership with the Kent Downs AONB Team and Kent Wildlife Trust on a plan that formed the core of a successful £2.5m Landscape Partnership Scheme bid to the HLF.

We produced a detailed plan to deliver interpretation and community activities across the three years of the project. Among the work we carried out were interpretive assessments of 19 sites across the study area, an audit of existing interpretation and a community consultation.

Outputs of the plan included:

– A ‘Flagship Fauna and Flora’ programme aimed at engaging communities in discovering, learning about and actively conserving key species and habitats.

– Provision of gateway sculptures and circular trails linking villages to heritage sites

– A ‘Landscape Celebration Programme’, using music and drama to engage local people with past traditions and the changing landscape

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Thurnham Castle

Thurnham Castle, and other historic features of White Horse Wood Country Park near Maidstone, were good examples of heritage assets where the role of interpretation was to bring ruins and traces of structures to life. It was important to recommend media appropriate to the audience, so we carried out both on- and off-site visitor surveys to inform these decisions. Kent County Council wanted the site to be a resource for local schools so there was also a formal education strand to the plan we produced.
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Shorne Woods Heritage Project

Our clients at Shorne Woods Country Park had an ambitious vision for the site as a hub for access not only to a recently extended park but also to three other strategically linked sites. Our plan set out proposals for a new visitor centre, new provision around the site and a programme of community engagement centred on archaeology. As well as interpretation we wanted to enhance visitor experience with improved facilities. Our work contributed to a successful Heritage Lottery Fund bid and it has been wonderful to see all of this become a reality!
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