Town centre recovery in ‘new normal’ times

Consumer confidence is gradually returning to our town centres since lockdown. This is thanks to the hard work and dedication of local shop owners and staff who, with support from Business Improvement District (BIDs) teams, have put measures in place to help shoppers feel safe when out and about. We had a chat with the BIDs to see how they have helped local businesses nurture these first green shoots of economic recovery.

Hitchin (www.hitchinherts.com)

In Hitchin, Town Centre Rangers are out every morning sanitising street furniture and topping up hand sanitising stations across the town. Social distancing signs and queueing floor stickers have also been introduced.

To support local cafes and restaurants, the Hitchin BID launched the ‘Eat Alfresco’ initiative in Hitchin’s Market Place. Eat Alfresco allows local restaurants and cafes that do not have outside or indoor space to socially distance customers, to serve customers outdoors in the Market Place. It runs seven days a week with different participating restaurants rotating fortnightly.

Meanwhile, a new website www.hitchinbasket.com has been set up to allow customers to quickly find which shops are open and search for available goods and services before leaving their homes. The Hitchin Property Trust has also run a series of free online webinars to assist businesses with promoting their business during these difficult times.

Letchworth (www.loveletchworth.com)

The Love Letchworth team have worked tirelessly to ensure customers return to the town after lockdown.

They introduced a ‘Follow the Squirrel’ campaign, with posters illustrating the locally famous Letchworth black squirrel wearing a face mask, encouraging people to shop safely, follow any one-way systems and ensure social distancing while shopping.

Hand sanitisers have been placed across town and retail businesses provided with guidance on how to ensure customers’ safety, including introducing one-way systems in shops where possible, managing queuing systems and advising on cleaning regimes in shops.

Royston (www.roystonfirst.com)

Royston First, the town’s BID, has worked very closely with town centre businesses to help them get back on their feet. Coordinator Julia Brooks wrote in to let us know about what they’ve been doing:

“We launched a campaign called ‘Royston Come Together,’ with the aim of reviving the town centre and industrial areas and bringing life back to the town we all know and love. As part of the project, we created an online COVID-19 Support Hub for local businesses on our website, Roystonfirst. com. This contains useful information and resources, including funding opportunities. We have also produced some downloadable COVID-19 posters and stickers for businesses.

“We have installed five touch-free hand sanitiser stations in busy areas in the town centre. We also helped promote our local businesses by listing the opening times of those with premises in newspaper adverts, magazines and online. We have recently held a successful colouring competition, with the winning picture being used for a new adapted safe town trail that we are organising.

“Although lockdown inevitably forced many of our businesses to temporarily close, when we carried out a survey with local business owners we found they had used the opportunity to look at new ways to operate safely and learn new skills. From our survey, we found that 22% diversified to continue to trade, for example, by offering a home delivery service or introducing takeaways and 35% took the opportunity to develop new skills in areas such as customer care and remote working.

“To improve communications with our business community, Royston First set up a new Facebook group exclusively for businesses with premises, to help business owners keep up to date with the latest information.”

For more information visit www.roystonfirst.com. To find out more about shopping and life in Royston, visit www.roystontown.uk

Ben Chapman, Old Bull Inn, Royston:

The ‘Royston Come Together’ campaign has been brilliant. The adverts in our local paper, the Royston Crow, have been particularly useful to customers - communicating that we are open and with the opening times too. We’ve had a really positive response to the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme and business has really picked up since the £10 vouchers have been put in place.

Mrs Jay Bushaway, Deputy Manager, Merlin Mica Hardware:

“We have made adjustments to protect staff and customers with screens, hand sanitisers and masks/visors for staff to wear. Royston First also provided a hand sanitiser unit to go outside the shop. Immediately customers started to use it which was great! Royston First also gathered all shop opening times to advertise these, which was brilliant and really got us and the town up and running. It’s been wonderful to see our regular customers back again, as well as new customers, which really gives the sense that Royston and surrounding area are choosing to shop locally and support local businesses.”