Caerffili Town 2035, Caerffili for Caerphilly County Borough Council with Stride Treglown, Cowshed and Future Places Toolkit

Caerffili Town 2035, Caerffili for Caerphilly County Borough Council with Stride Treglown, Cowshed and Future Places Toolkit

 

Festival of Ideas was a six-week community engagement campaign empowering Caerffili residents to co-create their town centre’s future. Moving beyond consultation to genuine partnership, the initiative engaged over 500 people through creative workshops, public events, and digital surveys. It targeted underrepresented groups including disabled people, older adults, young people, and families. Public awareness of the placemaking plan doubled from 28% to 56%, fostering shared ownership and generating actionable solutions that reflect the community’s unique character and aspirations for their town.

 

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Describe the context of the community engagement. Why did the engagement take place?

 

Caerffili, a town in South Wales is dominated by Wales’ largest castle. Once a thriving mining community, it is now a residential hub which faces challenges common to post-industrial valleys towns, including economic decline, high unemployment, social deprivation and a struggling town centre.
 Caerffili’s Placemaking Plan launched in 2020, but by 2024 only 28% of residents surveyed were aware of it. Initial research and engagement revealed deep dissatisfaction: 55% of survey respondents were unhappy with their town centre, describing it as rundown, scruffy, "dirty," and littered. The ‘top of town’ felt disconnected from the castle and shopping centre, lacking appeal. Over two years, we learned that community concerns centred on poor maintenance, absent public toilets, congestion, illegal parking, antisocial behaviour, inadequate lighting, and lack of visual appeal or greenery. However, significant barriers prevented meaningful change: residents were unaware of engagement opportunities, unable to voice concerns constructively, and lacked genuine participation channels. An entrenched sense of being done to, not with, had eroded trust.
 
Festival of Ideas emerged from the understanding that we needed to connect with the local community better— to move beyond superficial engagement toward authentic co-creation, empowering residents to lead the development of solutions for their town centre.The engagement aimed to address the overarching disconnection by creating hands-on opportunities for voices to shape their environment. Rather than developing ideas for the community, we committed to developing ideas with them, building awareness, understanding, and shared ownership essential for placemaking that reflects Caerffili’s unique character.

 

Who did you engage with and how?

 

Festival of Ideas ran for six weeks, engaging Caerffili’s diverse community though multiple accessible formats due to our learnings over the previous two years. We mapped stakeholders and identified underrepresented groups (from our previous engagement) requiring targeted engagement: disabled people, older adults, young people, and families with young children. We partnered with established community organisations to reach these audiences authentically: Valley Daffodils (disabled adults), Caerphilly Women’s Institute (older adults), Caerphilly Business Club (local businesses), and Caerphilly Youth Forum (young people). Creative workshops were delivered in accessible venues across town, designed specifically for each group to generate solutions collaboratively. The centrepiece was a public activation day in a town centre location featuring highly visual, interactive activities: Brick by Brick ideas wall; King or Queen of Caerphilly dress-up station where children presented proposals; Design Your Dream Town Centre using craft and Lego; Ideas Tree for location-specific suggestions; and Future Places Toolkit using augmented reality to imagine possibilities. A bilingual digital survey encouraged broader participation beyond event attendance. Communications utilised social media (owned channels and local Facebook groups), offline materials (posters and leaflets), and media partnerships securing coverage in Caerphilly Observer, South Wales Argus, Nation Cymru, and Business Insider. Participants weren’t compensated but were empowered as co-creators. We established feedback loops through a Residents Committee (45 volunteers), Business Network (20 businesses), and Youth Forum, ensuring multiple touchpoints beyond single sessions. This approach fostered genuine relationships where every participant meaningfully contributed to shaping their town’s future.

 

Have you continued the conversation? Will the community stay involved? 

 

Continued engagement is embedded in our approach through three established mechanisms ensuring ongoing community involvement:
 
Residents Committee: 45 local volunteers meet regularly as a sounding board for testing and refining ideas generated through Festival of Ideas. This forum provides continuity between engagement phases, ensuring community voice shapes feasibility and implementation. Numbers grew to 75 members during this phase of engagement. Business Network: 20 town centre businesses contribute perspectives on economic viability and practical delivery, ensuring solutions serve those working in and operating from Caerffili. Youth Forum: Young people remain central to testing and developing ideas, ensuring interventions serve multiple generations.
 
These forums create feedback loops throughout the placemaking process. Ideas gathered during Festival of Ideas are being published and prioritised by the people who generated them through digital MetaSurveys and in-person sessions. This transparency demonstrates that participation matters and community input drives decisions.
 
The engagement follows a five-phase strategy: pre-engagement (understanding challenges), Festival of Ideas (discovering solutions), prioritisation (testing ideas), feasibility (intervention design), and activation (community-led delivery in 2026). We’re currently in phase three, with ongoing community involvement in prioritising which interventions proceed.
 
Over a third of Festival of Ideas participants signed up for quarterly newsletters, creating a communication channel for updates and continued participation opportunities. 
 
This isn’t a one-off consultation— it’s an ongoing partnership where the community remains engaged throughout design, delivery, and stewardship. By establishing multiple touchpoints and transparent processes, we’ve built sustainable community ownership that will extend beyond 2026 delivery into long-term town centre stewardship.