Arborfield Green
What we did
Cratus was commissioned in 2017 to support Crest Nicholson, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation’s lead development partner, on the creation of a 2000 home garden village with new primary and secondary schools alongside a district centre.
Our role on the project has been multi-faceted, offering an all-in-one communication and engagement solution which has brought the new and existing community together while promoting our client.
We have taken control of day-to-day communications and PR, alongside setting up community liaison groups and events committees, and managing consultation around reserved matters applications as they come forward. We focus on creative and collaborative problem-solving between the developer, on-site partners and residents and have even developed major incident protocol to support our client.
The community forums we set up continue to be well used and have provided space for discussing planning issues as well as wider community initiatives. Our proactive communication means the community always knows what is happening and when, and importantly we have set up the channels they need to keep communicating long after we leave the project.
The result
Our approach has protected Crest Nicholson’s reputation and wider interests in the area and built trust between the community and our client.
Cllr John Kaiser as Mayor of Wokingham said:
“The level of communication produced by the team on the Arborfield site in particular has led to an excellent level of engagement with councillors, residents and the local community.”
Cllr Charlotte Haitham-Taylor as Leader of Wokingham Borough Council said:
“My inbox is full of issues from the other developments around the borough and I have nothing about this one”.
