The Harris Federation approached us to work with them on a reputation management issue relating to proposed temporary accommodation options for the Harris Boys’ Academy.

We provided strategic advice on press and stakeholder engagement. There were two phases to the work we undertook with a substantial focus on both the education vision for the Academy and planning issues arising out of the proposed site.

The Academy wanted to open a year early in temporary accommodation but none of the temporary sites had proved suitable, yet there was pressure from a campaigning group of parents to get the school opened early in September 2007.

The LEA and key councillors had also made promises about delivery of a temporary solution and there was a delicate balance to be struck around the PR and media handling of the issue.

One of the solutions involved co-locating with a special needs school. Residents were opposed to this and so were the governors of the special needs school. We worked with the project manager and the sponsor to develop a media relations strategy targeting the local press and London media.

We agreed Q&As, a letter to parents, a letter to local residents and a press release which was timed to coincide with a project steering group decision not to proceed with the temporary site solution. The strategy was to minimise negative coverage and to get across Harris’s rationale for not proceeding.

In the second phase of the work we worked with the sponsor and project management team to manage expectations around the planning decisions affecting the permanent site for the Academy. This meant working closely with the architects around the size and scale of the proposed building and working with local resident groups who had concerns about the impact of the Academy on their streets including issues of parking and traffic volumes.

We liaised with the media relations team at Southwark Council ensuring that we were alerting them to any media interest in the planning issue from the sponsor’s perspective. They, in turn, kept us informed of any media calls they received as the Planning Authority. It meant we shared and agreed statements, Q&As and agreed relevant spokespeople.We also monitored any coverage in the local media to assess its impact on the project.

The planning issues were complex, particularly in relation to the perceptions of local residents.However we succeeded in getting balanced coverage in the South London Press and Southwark News, briefed the reporters, gave them the press release and managed the expectations of parents and residents through timely distribution of letters with the key messages from the press release.