Following the extensive consultations with Bishop’s Stortford businesses over the last few months, we are excited to announce the new BID Business Plan for 2023-28. This plan is based on what you and your fellow business owners / managers want to see in our town, what will help you and what will enhance our current offering.
Our thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts and ideas with us, we had over 80 businesses complete the survey and this has helped us, together with our Board members, to develop this exciting new plan.
We have shaped the ideas into 4 core themes, all with the aim to support you, provide additional services above and beyond and showcase our town to all who live, work and socialise here.
As a brief summary, the 4 themes are:
Theme 1: Marketing & Promotion.
We plan to invest £225,000 over 5 years promoting our town with projects such as:
- Building on the Discover Stortford brand, the website and social channels
- Promotional campaigns
- Discover Stortford Gift Card scheme
- Creating a library of photos for you all to use
- Writing columns and articles in local press
Theme 2: Bishop’s Stortford Events.
We have set aside £245,500 for the next 5 years to:
- Develop new events in the town centre
- Work with other stakeholders operating events to ensure businesses get maximum benefit
- Continue working towards and maintaining Purple Flag status
Theme 3: Supporting Bishop’s Stortford Businesses.
The plan includes £145,000 over the next 5 years to:
- Provide training sessions
- Champion for staff parking permits and lobby for car parking improvements
- Introduce a cardboard recycling scheme
- Be a voice for the businesses and to fly the flag for Bishop’s Stortford at district and county level
Theme 4: Bishop’s Stortford place making
And exciting new area for us to work on, with £215,000 allocated for the next 5 years.
- Undertake a comprehensive review if the current street scene – paving, landscaping and street furniture and work the correct authorities to make improvements and fund additional schemes.
- Annual deep clean of the streets
- Connecting spaces, to link the town and create a consistent look and feel.
- Identify areas which need lighting improvements.
You can download the Business Plan in full here to read in more detail about the proposed plans.
In September you will receive a copy of this in the post together with voting papers. We’d really like to ask for your support of the BID and encourage you to vote YES when you receive them. It is a postal vote, so you’ll need to send that form back in the post, but we’ll be in touch with more details.
If you have any questions about the Business Plan please get in touch with Gina on gina@bishopsstortfordbid.co.uk.
