Agenda item

To consider the Town Centre Partnership Business Plan.  Matt Taylor (Town Centre Manager) will be in attendance.  The Plan is a continuously evolving document and is always open to new additions.   

The Town Centre Manager introduced a report on the Town Centre Partnership Business Plan.  The plan was an evolving document and the action plan had in fact been updated since the last meeting of the Scrutiny Committee.  The Partnership was a private sector led initiative with a vision of becoming the best market town in Staffordshire. He referred to the management structure of the board, which was detailed in the business plan. 

The Town Centre Manager stated that the partnership was encouraging businesses to sign up.  The Lymelight festival which had been run on a small budget by the business community had been a success and it was hoped that this would become an annual event.  He was working on a wider events programme for the Town.   One of the aims of the partnership was to make Newcastle a student town.  They were looking to improve the links with Keele University to attract more students to the town.  A Freshers event was going to be held in order to encourage students to make better use of the town.   He was pleased to see new shops appearing in the town.  Prospective businesses now had a single point of contact, which allowed for better facilitation. 

A Member asked how footfall was going to be monitored in the town.  In response, the Town Centre Manager stated that this was monitored by asking a number of businesses within the town centre for their own figures.   Members questioned whether there was merit in the Partnership completing their own footfall survey.  In response the Town Centre Manager stated that it was expensive to carry out such a survey and they did not have the available budget at the present time to carry out the research.  The data from the businesses was going to be provided to the next board meeting.  The Portfolio Holder offered to report back from the board meeting with the data.  A Member stated that it was hard to judge the success of the partnership without quality data for analysis.  In response to a question from a Member, the Town Centre Manager confirmed that 14% of shops in the town were empty. 

A Member praised the approach of having key events within the Town as a way of bringing people into the Town.  He thought that as events were held, other community groups would be encouraged to hold their own within the town.   

A Member stated that it was important to ensure that markets didn’t decline, citing the Charities Market as an example.  He thought longer-term market research was a useful approach to finding out what the public wanted to better inform businesses in the future.  He suggested that an application for the Town to become a Business Improvement District was important.  In response the Town Centre Manager agreed that lessons could be learnt from the markets already in place and there was certainly an argument for more of a collective strategy.  He agreed that events were important and it was hoped soon to have a jazz and blues event.  He agreed that market research was important and not necessarily just within the town but more widely across the Borough.  To become a business improvement district was one of the districts longer-term goals. He was pleased to report that the Partnership’s website had received over 2000 hits in the last two weeks.  A number of promotional items were being given to the shops to help advertise the new website.   The Executive Director for Regeneration and Development stated that the outside market was a Borough led operation ultimately but it was important to have the input of the Town Centre Partnership.  A report would be received by Cabinet on the 17 July with a number of proposals for the improvement of the outside market within the Town. 

RESOLVED: That a representative from the Town Centre Partnership be invited to the Committee in approximately six months time.