A new app, ‘Hello Spalding Big Tidy Week’, free radios to provide ASB alerts and a folk festival are among a range of initiatives being discussed by the town’s Business Improvement District (BID) to help town centre businesses.
A raft of updates were released this week ahead of a networking meeting due to take place on October 9.
A new digital platform is also to be launched with a company called Loqiva.
The app will ‘include ways to market businesses and customers will be able to use a click and collect function.’
“The app provides information about events and has a GPS function,” said the update.
There will also be a new BID website, a Making Spalding Safer initiative, a ‘food safari’ and six weeks of ‘summer fun,’ according to the document.
It’s also proposing to work with the plan to enter Spalding in the East Midlands in Bloom and will give that ‘a bit of the wow factor, BID manager Sarah Fletcher told the Spalding Town Forum on Tuesday night.
“People will go into the town and say ‘have you gone into the town and seen it, it’s spectacular,” she said. “We’re known as the flower growing area and we should celebrate that.”
It would also build on the hanging baskets the BID created.
“Coming into October those still look really great,” Mrs Fletcher said.
The food safari will see local restaurants, takeaways, bars and pubs involved in the promotion.
“It’s a bit like a tapas tour,” Mrs Fletcher continued. “Spalding is not the largest town to walk around on a summer evening while enjoying different cultures and foods we have got.”
It will be part of a proposed series of events, from ‘bike nights to a folk festival’.
Giving businesses a free radio is based on something currently carried out in Melton Mowbray.
“If we bulk buy using money collected they can be bought at a fraction of the price they are for pubwatches,” said Mrs Fletcher, claiming three quarters of the 400 business in the Leicestershire town used it.
“It’s a tried and tested method that’s working really well.”
Using the branding of ‘Hello Spalding’, there will also be networking opportunities with guest speakers and specialist support.
The BID was created last year after a vote by local businesses – which saw 58 in favour and 56 against with one voided, but the district council had 18 votes because of the number of properties it owns.
Some businesses have refused to pay, while others say they didn’t get a vote.
Coun Aaron Spencer, who runs Sedge estate agents said he was among the latter but told Mrs Fletcher: “You’ve had a rocky start with this but based on this (the report) it’s something I would personally like to get involved in. I want to see quantifiable success though.”
