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.

Business Support through Covid-19

by Helen Clark Bell | Sep 23, 2022

Support Offered Through Covid-19

Delivered by BID Leamington

In March 2020, businesses faced huge uncertainty as they were told to close their doors. Some grants had to be applied for, whilst other funding was paid out, new regulations had to be complied with, it was a time of enormous confusion and stress.

Throughout this devastating time, BID Leamington was interpreting, translating and communicating the latest announcements so businesses could easily understand what they were eligible for and how they needed to respond. Our communications became a regular and trusted source of information for many businesses that didn’t know where else to turn, particularly through the enormous amount of change being imposed.

In the meantime, we were also lobbying central government through our national business networks to secure support for those sectors that had been left behind, by joining campaigns such as #RaiseTheBar and the #BounceBackBetter.

Providing Expert Information and Clarity

During this ‘unprecedented’ time, BID Leamington re-focussed all our activity to respond to the needs of our businesses.

New regulations and ways of working needed to be understood and adopted at a rapid rate. BID Leamington produced weekly updates that were emailed to hundreds of businesses and posted online, aimed at decoding regulations, business support and grants advice – and team was available and ready to answer questions on the other end of the phone.

BID Leamington also hosted a number of free on-line workshops with sector experts to help businesses understand the wide variety of changes that were being introduced. Answering questions such as: what is furlough? who is eligible? how to claim? through a live Q & A webinar with local HR company Absolute Works provided answers enabling businesses to move through these challenging times with clarity. The BID team also secured other critical support including financial, legal, and health and wellbeing advice from partner businesses and organisations.

Building consumer confidence

BID Leamington initiated a number of campaigns to help build consumer confidence during this time to help footfall return when businesses were able to open.

Some of these projects gained us great publicity such as our Social Distancing Flowers and Spa Stars.

These were consumer based campaigns in partnership with the business community to keep everyone safe and expressing gratitude to some wonderful people.

Spa Stars

by Helen Clark Bell | Sep 23, 2022

Spa Stars

Delivered by BID Leamington

The Spa Stars walk of fame was warmly welcomed when Covid restrictions were being lifted in 2020. It featured the names of local people nominated for being a shining light. Friends, family members, neighbours and colleagues were nominated, each with a short reason whether it be for a kind act, for their friendship or simply because they are loved.

The sparkly star pavement stickers decorated walkways around the town centre, including spaces around the Royal Priors Shopping Centre, Regent Court and the Town Hall.

Over 800 responses were received, nominating around 250 individuals. Each nomination had their own star which when promoted on social media attracted received comments that they will be coming into town to see them!

Feedback from the community was very positive and this promotion lifted community spirit and helped to make the town centre a community centre.