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Support for businesses in Warwickshire town centres

Supporting our town centres

Warwickshire County Council is working to support the town centres and high streets of Warwickshire in order to enable and encourage a mix of uses that will enhance the offer and maintain prosperous and vibrant centres. Our core aims:

  • Warwickshire’s communities and individuals are supported to be safe, healthy and independent
  • Warwickshire’s economy is vibrant and supported by the right jobs, training and skills and infrastructure.

Warwickshire Town Network

The Warwickshire Towns Network was set up by the Town Centres and Tourism team to help support and grow town centre businesses and partnerships. The network brings towns together to share ideas and solutions and learn from and support each other.

All organisations and businesses who have an interest in the health and vitality of Warwickshire’s towns are welcome to participate. The network has a strong Twitter following and gets together bi-annually for networking.

The annual conference of the network attracts a wide range of professional bodies such as the Association of Town and City Management (ATCM).

Additionally forums are held held throughout the year with ‘place practitioners’ from each town to discuss current plans and issues within the regeneration and town centre agenda.

  • The forums bring together representatives from local authorities engaged in town centre management and the high street prosperity agenda, as well as representatives from BIDs/own centre companies and town representatives from the smaller towns.
  • The purpose of the county-wide group is to share best practice and ideas between towns and learn from each other’s experiences.
  • The group can also inform about any business and funding opportunities, relevant national and local policy, initiatives and trends as well as public sector activity that affects or impacts on the high street.

For more information please contact the team

Some of the Forum members:

Retailer training courses

Through the Warwickshire Towns Network we offer free training programmes to retailers in all towns and large villages across Warwickshire. Businesses are asked to dedicate time and commitment to improve their business and the wider town centre offer.

  • How to Create Your Own Footfall will commence in February 2019 in Bedworth and Kenilworth.
  • Bedworth – Mondays 10:00-14:00 (11 Feb, 25 Feb, 4 Mar, 25 Mar 2019).
  • Kenilworth – Tuesdays 10:00-14:00 (12 Feb, 26 Feb, 5 Mar, 26 Mar 2019).
  • Digital Business Skill Training has been completed in Nov 2018.

For more details on the current availability of courses, eligibility and booking please contact towns@warwickshire.gov.uk.

Purple Tuesday

Purple Tuesday is the UK’s first accessible shopping day, established to recognise the importance and needs of disabled consumers and promote inclusive shopping.

Last year the UK’s accessible shopping day was Tuesday 13th November 2018.

The aim of Purple Tuesday is to make customer-facing businesses more aware of these opportunities and challenges and inspire them to make changes to improve the disabled customer experience over the long term.

Any business or organisation that interacts with disabled customers – either at a physical location or online – is strongly encouraged to consider signing up.

Small Business Saturday

Small Business Saturday encourages people to use their local shops and traders to help to support the local economy.

Warwickshire County Council support the event each year via social media and press coverage showcasing the range of small independents we have in Warwickshire.

Research

Warwickshire County Council teamed up with Loughbourgh University to carry out research which establishes the digital footprint across all Warwickshire towns.

The research is currently being finalised and results will be available shortly.

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