As we move into the 8^th month of the Colchester Business Improvement District (BID), it’s so exciting to see some of our key projects really taking shape. Since the launch of the BID on 1^st October 2018, we have focused on setting the BIDs foundations for our 5-year term, to ensure we are placing ourselves in good stead for our future plans.

So what has the BID done so far I hear you ask? We now have a team of five operational staff who are involved in the day to day running of the BID with myself as the BID Manager, Selina as our Marketing & Admin Executive and our three Street Ambassador’s Elche, Ethan and Maz.

Having listened to the businesses of the BID prior to our ballot in 2018, we created a business plan based on what the town centre needed. Looking at this year by year, we felt that we needed to focus our first-year plans on improving the perception and appearance of the BID area to create a base to build on for the remainder of our 5-year term. We have spent some time reviewing what is currently being done around the cleanliness, appearance and marketing of the town centre. As the BID must add additionality, it was important that we had a firm understanding of the work that is already being delivered.

Since the launch of the #BetterColchester campaign by Colchester Borough Council (CBC), there has been a vast improvement in the cleanliness of the town centre with deep-cleans of pavements, grot-spot cleans and gumdrop bins for chewing gum. With this in mind, it was clear that we would not provide further additionality to what CBC was achieving. Instead, we looked at how we could celebrate the fantastic work our businesses are also doing and encourage more to take care of and pride in their business frontages. Therefore, we worked in partnership with CBC to launch the Neat Street campaign of which we now have 50 registered businesses with their stickers in the window. For those that are not currently a Neat Street member, when you see a Street Ambassador wondering passed, pull them in and ask about how you can become a part of this campaign.

As it stands today, our town centre has a vacancy rate of 5%. With the national average at 12% and the East Anglia average at 7%, we are currently performing below both averages. This is fantastic news but it doesn’t mean the work stops there.

The last month has seen many hours spent developing our new consumer-facing brand and website which is ready for launch this Summer (watch this space…it’s beautiful), the final plans are coming together for the delivery of our beautiful flowers for BID In Bloom which starts in June and we have recently launched the new DISC scheme with Colchester Pubwatch to facilitate the sharing of information between businesses, supporting the prevention of anti-social behaviour and crime in the town for the night-time economy.