Leiston Community Land Trust
Bringing about positive change for Leiston
Leiston Community Land Trust aims to create a sustainable and economically vibrant town centre. Their focus is to plan and design future developments to meet the current and future needs of Leiston and its people. We were tasked with providing Leiston CLT with the marketing support they needed to communicate their valuable work within the local community.
When Leiston CLT began working with Mackman, their primary methods of raising awareness were Facebook, a stall in the local supermarket, and a drop-in centre. The next step towards boosting their profile within the town and to encourage participation as members of the CLT was to create a unified brand and establish an online presence that residents could refer to for news on ongoing projects and how to support them.
Working with Russ and the Leiston Trustees was an absolute privilege. We thoroughly enjoyed being a part of Leiston’s regeneration project. By engaging with local residents and communicating the passion and drive of the Trustees through a brand new website and identity, the CLT will engage more advocates for this unique Suffolk town.
Eleanor Joyce – Marketing Assistant, Mackman
Leiston Community Land Trust aims to work with local partners, businesses and the community to bring about positive change for the coastal town of Leiston in Suffolk. Leiston is a former industrial town that attracts visitors to the Long Shop Museum, Leiston Film Theatre, RSPB Minsmere and Sizewell Beach.
The Community Land Trust was established to work on regenerating and redesigning the town centre, which had suffered from a historic lack of investment. The committee noticed that although many Leiston residents were on board with the project, others had not heard of the Community Land Trust’s efforts. They therefore approached Mackman to develop consistent branding, a website, and an ‘explainer’ video.
Brand Facts
- Leiston Community Land Trust, or Leiston CLT, is a group of people who have come together to try and bring the town centre back to life.
- Leiston is an old industrial town in Suffolk which has altered over time with more and more industrial estates being developed around the edge, leaving the town centre emptier and unused.
- The CLT aims to help Leiston residents fall in love with their town again. However, they found that few residents were aware of their work to boost the profile of the town, and therefore could not get involved.
Project Facts
- Leiston CLT approached Mackman to work with them on creating a brand, marketing materials, video, and informational website to publicise their work within the local community and beyond.
- Mackman worked with Leiston CLT’s enthusiastic Trustees to establish professional, coherent branding and marketing that reflected the heritage of Leiston while looking to the promising future of the town.
The Challenge
At the core of the project was the need to unite Leiston’s heritage with its future. A particular challenge was coordinating with the Trustees, many of whom had regular jobs in addition to their work with the CLT, to produce an outcome that accurately reflected their goals for the town.
Our Process
Connecting with the town
Key to this project was tapping into the huge amount of support within the Leiston community for their hometown. Mackman engaged extensively with the Trustees to understand their advocacy for the town and their ambitious plans for the future.
The branding not only needed to promote the CLT by communicating the key objectives and up and coming projects. The creative team also had to create a brand toolkit that would allow the CLT to encourage membership sign-up and engage with local partners and businesses to increase funding.
Visual Elements: Meeting with key stakeholders
The website would be used to promote the CLT and the projects they are working on. It therefore needed to be able to engage a variety of audiences, but in particular, both the public and business audiences.
The finished product incorporated concept drawings created by the project architect to contribute towards a vision of the town as outlined in the strapline, ‘Inspiring Positive Change’.
Content strategy: What information do people need?
The website keeps locals updated on what is going on in Leiston and acts as an information hub for tourists, promoting other local initiatives such as the Visit Leiston website.
The video shoot was hugely successful, as it allowed the Mackman team to get a real feel for the local pride in the town, captured on film through a series of ‘talking heads’ style interviews with residents and businesspeople.
What does this mean for Leiston Community Land Trust?
From working with staff and clients, we really got to know the people, why they deliver the services they do, how they do it and why people buy from them.
The Results
Leiston CLT now have a website to direct potential funders, supporters, members and trustees to, and a platform on which to build their efforts to raise awareness of what the town has to offer. They employed their first paid member of staff, whose role with the CLT is work alongside and continue to promote the work that is already well underway.
In October 2020, Leiston CLT received planning permission for their ‘Phase One’ work in order to open the link between the High Street and the Coop on the south side of the United Church. That is just the first phase in their plans for the overall development of Leiston’s town centre with the work on Phase Two – the Market Square and housing – still progressing in the background.