Folkestone & Hythe District Council
Our brief
Increase and broaden adult and youth engagement in Folkestone’s £22 million regeneration.
Digital Urban delivered
We delivered three digital experiences: a magic carpet ride VR experience, an urban explorer quest and a media table showcase. These engaged the public over two 3-day series of workshops at different stages of the regeneration planning. Additionally our Youth Engagement team ran youth engagement events with 200 pupils.
We worked in partnership with Folkestone & Hythe District Council, creating immersive experiences that showcased proposed changes that would, in the words of local councillor Rich Holgate, “radically change the look of the town centre”. We laser-scanned the high street and modelled design-proposals for active travel plus a new bridge and a new park.
As well as a VR vibrating magic carpet ride, we created a hand-controlled gamepad experience of the new community which used gamification to test where people might want to spend their time and money. During the magic carpet ride, people dropped coins when they saw something worth spending time and money on and during the gamepad experience, they were given the opportunity to find out more about a space or place – for example a bridge or a museum – via pop-up information factoids.
The council wanted to encourage visits to the town centre and encourage these visitors to linger a little longer. They were determined that locals had a voice. Indeed, during our third engagement event the council was already showcasing how the plans had been altered based on feedback gained from residents attending the previous events.
The youth engagement events involved school children designing their dream park and these designs have influenced the final designs.
Take a journey on the magic carpet!
The Digital Urban difference
Folkestone & Hythe District Council conducted a robust evaluation of the impact of their spend on immersive experiences. They compared their July 2023 public engagement events which did not use immersive experiences to their public engagement events in November 2023 and March 2024 which did employ immersive experiences.
Their evaluation showed that 10 times as many people engaged with the consultations with digital experiences. Over 75% of attendees at the digital consultation events had never attended a consultation event before.
“I struggle to understand 2D maps and project text – the way the plans were presented via the VR, the digital touch table and the excellent Folkestone console game was breathtaking! The tasks on the game helped me work my way through the project area, taking in the changes as I went.”
Workshop attendee
