THE SOUTH BANK PARTNERSHIP
THE CHALLENGE
"We need a 4-year plan to light up London’s South Bank."
THE ORGANISING IDEA
"A Better South Bank for Everyone."
DELIVERABLES
4-year strategic manifesto, Workshops and interviews, Develop marketing strategy, Positioning.
The South Bank Partnership works to transform this area of London, in particular its public realm and the facilities available to those who live, work, study and visit. It is chaired by the 2 local MPs while other members include local councillors and officers from Lambeth and Southwalk, community leaders (such as Coin Street), services (Network Rail, Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital), Tertiary Education groups (Kings College London, London South Bank University) and employers (such as ITV, the BFI, National Theatre, Merlin Entertainments).
The Partnership asked Whistlejacket to work with them to develop the themes and pillars of the next 4-year development programme; to suggest tangible actions the group should pursue between 2018 and 2022; devise message platforms for the programme; provide advice on the on-going communication and event programme to promote these actions; and write the vision and then develop the new manifesto.
Working with the Head of Marketing at the South Bank Employers Group, we interviewed representatives from every organisation and individual on the partnership.
From this we developed a new Vision for the South Bank. In contrast to previous manifestos, this vision is unashamedly optimistic and upward looking, from its title onwards:
“A Better South Bank for Everyone”
The vision is supported by a manifesto in which we develop 6 key themes, each consistently raised by members of the partnership as important issues they would like to pursue in the area: The environment and public realm; Employment skills and learning; Affordability; Inclusivity; Managing growth and development; Security, crime prevention and safety. Under each pillar there is a series of action-orientated initiatives that will be pursued over the next 4 years - each is deliberately written to be objectively measurable. The vision and manifesto have been published in a freely available document, called “The South Bank Manifesto 2018: A Better South Bank for Everyone” which has received the backing of the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan.
