Since 2020, Barley has provided full-service strategic communications to East West Railway Company (EWR Co) to support its progression towards applying for a Development Consent Order (DCO) for East West Rail, the new railway connecting Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge.
Through multiple political administrations and three public consultations, our work has enabled EWR Co to maintain momentum, strengthen stakeholder trust and mitigate delivery risk.
Our remit has included strategic advice, political and stakeholder engagement, public consultation, media and digital communications, sensitive landowner engagement and internal capability development – delivered using Barley’s IMPACT model to ensure communications directly supported the organisation’s strategic and programme objectives and helped to make the case for EWR.
By focusing on EWR Co’s broader strategic objectives, we helped them meet challenges, mitigate risks and maintain a robust case for EWR throughout:
- Extensive political upheaval, including five Prime Ministers
- Consultation in 2021 during COVID
- The appointment of two new CEOs
- The Route Update Announcement in 2023
- Consultation in 2024 – 2025
Results
Our work has delivered measurable programme benefits by reducing key risks and building trust amongst key stakeholders by:
- Accelerating political engagement general post-election: our highly successful ‘100 Days’ programme in advance of the 2024 General Election identified and mapped potential new MPs along the line of route and likely Ministers so that as soon as new people were in post, we were able to contact them with meaningful content. We engaged 100% of new MPs along the route within two weeks of the election, avoiding any engagement lag and potential negative perceptions from the new elected representatives
- Working with Aecom to develop a consultation strategy that deployed new digital technologies to deliver the public consultation in 2021 (during COVID), supporting the organisation and its technical experts through its first and only digital public consultation, and leading to the highest response rates of any of EWR Co’s three public consultations
- Supporting the new CEO from the start, planning and drafting event speeches, media features and blogs alongside extensive media training and briefings before major media announcements, such as the Route Update Announcement in 2023
- Implementing a new land and survey communications strategy to ensure sensitive land and property issues were managed with empathy, consistency and clarity to build trust and reduce delays to the programme. This also led to faster land access approvals, where engagement support helped to unlock key land access agreements for surveys, saving time and costs.
- Producing an extensive risk register that went beyond communications, encompassing risks across the programme, tagged and prioritised with mitigations and recommendations for management. This led to the development of bespoke handling plans for the highest priority risks, which helped mitigate any escalating communications risks and avoided potential derailing of the programme.
Overall, Barley’s strategic communications support contributed to significant risk reduction, smoother delivery of public consultations, and improved stakeholder and public perceptions, helping to maintain vital support for the project from multiple changes in government.
