BID Butterflies – Supporting Business & Community Engagement

by Stephanie Kerr | Sep 30, 2022

BID Butterflies – Supporting Business & Community

Delivered by BID Leamington

In July 2020, as a result of the Covid Pandemic the Parade in Leamington was closed to traffic to create additional space for social distancing. This presented an opportunity to install some street dressing and engage both the business community and the wider community in dialogue around the idea. As always, our approach was to embrace creativity whilst acknowledging the vulnerability that exists in the town’s communities.

BID Leamington surveyed the businesses community on their views and from 75 responses found there was greater support (70%) for the closure from businesses on Parade compared to the side streets, were less than 30% felt the measures were helping them.

Alongside this, Leamington introduced Leamington Butterflies who took on a similar ambassadorial role as our Christmas Angels. With a 2m wingspan and a creative touch, the butterflies personified the approach to reopen Leamington in a safe, kind, and welcoming way. They were visible in town every weekend until the end of August 2020 with a remit to help people feel safe, watch and manage social distancing and assist people where possible.

The butterflies also helped to monitor and understand changing community sentiment and signpost support to reinforce the role of the town centre as a community hub – and carried out customer surveys on the road closure (253 responses), which we compiled alongside business feedback and shared with Warwickshire County Council.

Our butterflies were also featured in a Local Government Association Case Study.

Say it with Flowers! Our Covid Approach

by Stephanie Kerr | Sep 30, 2022

Video: Social distancing with flowers in Leamington

Say it with Flowers! Our Covid Approach

Delivered by BID Leamington

Our approach to supporting social distancing in the town centre during the Covid pandemic made national and even international headlines as we looked to nature for inspiration, and adopted a creative approach whilst acknowledging the vulnerability that exists in the town’s communities.

Our flowers were positively embraced by the local community and inspired many other places, and organisations, such as schools, to be similarly creative. The learning from our ‘Social Distancing’ flowers was also featured in High Street Task Force and a Local Government Association (LGA) case studies, and in a presentation now available on You Tube.

Our flowers and the thinking behind them were featured in numerous national and international press articles:

BID Leamington as quoted:

Stephanie Kerr, executive director of BID Leamington, said: “We wanted pavement graphics that would be less authoritative and more welcoming, and came up with the idea of colourful flowers as we felt it reflected our town and would be enjoyed and embraced more.

“As we plan for the gradual opening up of the town centre, it is important to us that our community knows we are thinking about ongoing safety.

“Fostering trust and loyalty is more important than ever as more people start to return, and we see creative signage as part of that.

“We installed a first bunch as a trial to gauge feedback and the response was incredibly positive.

“Where possible, we will be using them throughout the town centre and are working in partnership with businesses and other stakeholders to help manage other public space challenges, such as queuing.

“I think there was tangible relief that the interventions being installed to protect them were also attractive, colourful and lifted the spirits.

“Parents have told us that it is also easier to get their children to stand by them, as they are fun and interesting.

“We have also been contacted by schools, who have also identified the value of using them to reduce stress and anxiety for returning students, which is relevant to us all.”

This creative approach then fed into lots of other Covid-19 placemaking interventions that we delivered.

Advertising and Promotional Campaigns

by Helen Clark Bell | Sep 21, 2022

Advertising and promotions

Delivered by BID Leamington

Attracting tourists and visitors

BID Leamington understands the value of ensuring that Royal Leamington Spa is featured on tourist and visitors must visit list. Local and regional advertising campaigns across a wide range of media, including radio, magazines, local papers, digital platforms as well as through coach trip providers helps to promote tourism to our beautiful town.

Elves in Leamington

by Helen Clark Bell | Sep 21, 2022

Elves in Leamington

Delivered by BID Leamington in partnership with Gibsonhaus

During Covid, all normal festive activities had to be abandoned, but in Leamington Town centre CCTV captured footage of a naughty elf who has been let loose in Leamington in the run-up to Christmas – and families were invited to discover his antics and be in with a chance of winning a prize.

In 2021, BID Leamington launched an ‘Elf Hunt’ in partnership with the creators of ‘Atmap’, where participants followed the footsteps of a cheeky elf to decipher his clues. The elf trail was followed by downloading the local events app Atmap onto a smartphone, and participants located the elf’s trail of destruction around seven Leamington shops. The app allowed people to scan a QR code in a shop, giving them a secret letter and a clue to where to find the next one. Once the codeword was revealed – participants went to the final location to pick a mystery treat and enter the prize draw where a grand prize of £100 to spend in Leamington shops could be won.

The Elf Hunt ran throughout December and coincided with Small Business Saturday, a national campaign to highlight small businesses and encourage people to use them over the Christmas period. All off-street car parks were to park in on the day (Saturday 4th December 2021), and BID Leamington’s ‘Christmas Angels’ gave away 250 ‘goody bags’ full of vouchers for town centre businesses.

View the naughty elf below.

Pumpkin Path

by Helen Clark Bell | Sep 21, 2022

Pumpkin Trail

Delivered by BID Leamington

Bringing families to Leamington during Hallowe’en, our pumpkin trail is now an annual event in our BID Leamington calendar. Over 50 businesses get involved each year, by hosting pumpkin clues in their shop windows and offering prizes to the winners. By following the trail, visitors explore parts of Leamington they may not usually frequent building loyalty and spending time in our lovely town centre.

We receive hundreds of entries from families who have enjoyed the trail from Warwick, Coventry and Rugby with the majority from North and South Leamington.