Trafford Council: Trafford Is
Digital Strategy & Distribution | Delivery & Support
Trafford, Greater Manchester, 2025-26
Trafford has an extraordinarily diverse cultural and leisure offer, from major international attractions to grassroots clubs and community activity. Building on our earlier work (as CTConsults) developing Trafford’s Cultural Strategy, we helped Trafford Council turn its ambition for a more connected cultural network into reality: shaping the business case, digital model and delivery plan for Trafford Is, then providing the technology to connect local partners and power live cultural listings.
Our earlier work with Trafford had identified a cultural sector rich in activity but fragmented across different organisations, communities and neighbourhoods. Cultural partners consistently wanted greater visibility, more opportunities for collective promotion and better ways to collaborate. The resulting Cultural Strategy proposed a hub-and-spoke model connecting activity across the borough.
The next challenge was practical. How could Trafford create digital infrastructure that supported that model without creating another website requiring organisations to duplicate information? And how could the Council build something manageable with limited resources, but flexible enough to evolve over time?
"The CultureHosts team... brings boundless energy, insight, care and a thoroughly collaborative approach." Maria Bota, Director of Cultural Transformation, Trafford Council
From business case to connected platform
We worked alongside Trafford Council to define the digital model: mapping local cultural assets, exploring technical and operational options and developing a roadmap covering listings, partner engagement, conversion and measurement. Rather than treating the website as the whole solution, we recommended a shared data layer capable of collecting structured information once and publishing it wherever audiences need it. We then helped Trafford translate that model into delivery, supporting procurement and developer requirements, defining data structures and workflows, and implementing CultureHosts as the listings infrastructure behind the new Trafford Is website.
A new digital home for Trafford’s cultural life
Trafford Is… now live, bringing together events and activities from across the borough within a single public-facing channel. Behind the website, CultureHosts provides shared infrastructure through which Council teams and local organisations can contribute and manage structured listings. The model is designed to go further: the same information can be shared with other websites and partners, reducing duplication while creating opportunities for neighbourhoods and organisations to promote one another. Most importantly, the project turns a strategic ambition into something tangible: a connected network through which Trafford’s cultural communities can contribute, collaborate and be discovered.
“We will make Trafford a place powered by creative and cultural expression that comes from everyone and that enriches lives and life chances.”
A view from Maria Bota, Director of Cultural Transformation:
Making Local Culture Discoverable
"Trafford’s Cultural Strategy is designed to leverage the borough’s unique cultural, heritage and creative assets, while addressing local inequalities and enabling more residents to live creative lives. As part of this strategy, Trafford.is draws residents and visitors into the borough’s multiple towns and neighbourhoods, and creates a coherent, visible and accessible cultural identity which celebrates the borough’s distinctive cultural, leisure, nature and heritage experiences. Trafford is yours to discover."
Working with CultureHosts
"We have really appreciated the opportunity to work with and learn from the expertise of Ryan Nevin and the Culture Hosts’ team. Alongside their deep experience of quality visitor economy web listings integrations, and the markets they are targeting, the team brings boundless energy, insight, care and a thoroughly collaborative approach."
Deliver change that lasts
From developing the strategy and business case to coordinating partners, technology and implementation, we help places turn ambitious ideas into practical projects and build the capability and infrastructure needed to sustain them.
Get in touch
If you’re interested in working with us, have questions about the platform, or want to learn more, we’d love to hear from you