Supporting Our Town Through Covid
Re-opening into Recovery
Covid was devastating for businesses and the vibrancy of all town centres. Supporting businesses and the town through re-opening and into recovery and rebuilding the confidence and loyalty was an activity not referenced within our original Business Plan. BID Leamington swiftly developed and agreed a recovery strategy and responded creatively with a high profile and innovative campaign that was recognised nationally. Alongside public facing activities in the town and online, the BID team worked closely with the BID Board of Directors and partner organisations to directly support hundreds of businesses in a variety of ways.
Our Public Facing Initiatives
BID Leamington embraced a creative and collaborative approach to respond to pressing issues, whilst acknowledging the vulnerability that exists in the town’s communities.
Our public facing initiatives in the town centre were aimed at welcoming people back and supporting a safe experience. They were welcomed locally and some were showcased and replicated in other towns and cities. Below are some examples which which you can read more about in our ‘project highlights’.
- Flower Power for Social Distancing: supporting social distancing in a beautiful and inviting way.
- Spa Stars: showcasing and thanking local hero’s in our community, welcoming the community into town and inviting visitors to explore and discover new areas.
- BID Butterflies: supporting business and community engagement and the Parade road closure.
- Santa’s Post Box: welcoming our community at Christmas time and providing an opportunity to share feelings, thoughts and wishes.
- Creative Covid Communications: we installed flags, banners, posters around the town centre to foster support, kindness and consideration, and provided fun and engaging digital media communications across our social media platforms.
- Floral Street Decorations: we installed giant floral street crossings at key locations around town to welcome visitors back in a beautiful way. Seven crossings were installed from Parade down to the Canal on Clemens Street.
- Streetscape Improvements: where pavements were widened by the local authority (to support socially distanced ques), we replaced their cones with planter boxes to improve the function and aesthetic of the space.
We also supported a number of very innovative projects delivered by Creative Leamington as follows:
- LYT (Leamington Young Talent) Market was an innovative and exciting way to bring 20+ vacant windows and closed businesses to life whilst supporting 12 young artists and business people to trade via shop windows and QR codes. View the businesses here.
- Paint the Yard was an exciting street art project delivered in the south town ‘Creative Quarter’ to bring a yard to life with fantastic artworks to enable the re-imagination of the area. The before / after results are incredible!
- The Frontline Project was a mural, digital media and street graphics installed around the town centre designed by artist Danny Coyne to celebrate the amazing work being done by the NHS throughout Covid.
Projects from BID Leamington
The BID team is here to keep you posted with all things that we’ve been doing. Below are some of the projects that we’ve recently been working on. If you have a project that you would like help delivering please contact us.
