Dorchester Business Improvement District

Dorchester BID Project Director's latest report

Report - October 2011

Project time lost: - There has not been as much progress on some projects because since the last meeting a lot of my (and Keir's and Lisa's time) has been taken up with other activities including dealing with non-payment by a few BID businesses, addressing various car parking issues and attending meetings to correct misinformation. However the benefit of all this is that we now have almost complete payment and there is a general feeling in town that being positive in the news about Dorchester is more likely to attract more visitors.
Parking updates - Since the last board meeting I had a request to go as a witness to the WDDC's scrutiny committee meeting as they are currently focusing on parking issues (The Chamber were represented too). I was invited to present a number of initiatives to help mitigate the current parking issues. These were a collection of ideas suggested by businesses in Dorchester.
The majority of the ideas were given cross party support by the councillors present and well received. Then, yesterday we had a follow up meeting where WDDC staff presented their responses to the suggestions (and reasons why some could not happen) but after a good bit of teamwork between councillors, the DBID and the Chamber several of these suggestions now look to be real possibilities in some form. Once we have confirmation and the Council exec have decided which ones can happen, we will be able to tell everyone about them.
Shoppers Guide - Printed and being distributed from today in London - Dorchester tomorrow! Copies will be available all over town including at the TIC. This will give great extra exposure for Dorchester in the run up to the Olympics and all next year. Update - many copies distributed at the successful Business Connections event, Dorford Centre, October 14th
Subsidised advertising: - We have provided assistance for BID businesses again this summer in the Echo and the ViewFrom publications as well as the shoppers guide. The new Autumn/Winter season edition of Resort magazine is about to hit the streets and we will be encouraging as many businesses as possible to join our co-operative section of this tourist magnet publication in the next edition which covers Spring/Summer 2012 - the run up to the Olympics!
Dorchester Cracker: - We will be doing our usual run of supporting advertising for the Cracker this year and promoting the later night shopping on Thursdays through December. You may have seen in this weeks View From a full page advert which is already giving people the reminder to keep the day free.
Social media workshop: - Ran 4th October for the 3rd time, still well attended and nice to see some new businesses there that have not so far been able to get to any of these events. We will be running another level II event probably on the 1st of November.
Website: - Traffic dropped off in September for the first time in many months. We hope this is a glitch and a bit of an end of summer thing (after a record number of individual site visitors in August it was always likely). The site has been kept fresh with regular updates and new blog stories.
Bike Racks: - All installed now and had positive feedback from several people. In fact, we have been approached by the Town Copuncil to see if they could have two in the Borough gardens. Although we are likely to be spent up on the cycle rack budget, I would like to propose that if we can find the budget we could offer to match fund 50/50 on this installation if they decide to go ahead - our cost would be £500.
Voucher buy back scheme: - As already mentioned, this is now going live but I have been holding off telling BID businesses about it because if WDDC rubber stamp the idea of adding their support to this then businesses will get £2 back for every 5 tokens collected rather than £1 for every 5. I expect that we will get a few new shops coming into the scheme as a result of this support. I am hoping to send something out before the end of next week but all tokens from October onwards will be redeemable.
Signage around town: - We now have the additional signage installed at the rear of Waitrose and the rear of Stead and Simpson. This is to help visitors find the shops from the newly short stay Wollaston fields car park and the remaining Charles Street car park. In addition to this, as a result of the requests made at the monthly meetings now taking place between DBID, Chamber, WDDC, Simons and Cowlin, we now have much better signage around the site including a massive new blue short stay parking banner on the wall outside Wollaston to help visitors identify and find it.
To further assist some of the most affected shops near the development site, DBID, Chamber and WDDC all contributed towards the costs of banners either end of the Hardye arcade, these are now also in place.
Alistair's Town Crier taster walks: - The taster walks that we and the Chamber have been sponsoring have now finished and we have collected 68 surveys representing 223 visitors to town who enjoyed the tours. I have the survey cards here if anyone would like to see the comments. The walks were generally very well received. We have randomly picked a winner of the £50 prize and she is a Mrs Smile from Bristol whom I am trying to contact.
Energy Audit: - Considering how everyone is trying to watch the pennies at the moment, the response to the free energy audits was quite low. As part of the BID ethos of trying to make the BID levy cost neutral we will keep offering similar things and want to try and develop ideas for co-operative bulk buying of certain products every business needs. We do need to find a 'project champion' for this initiative and there is an offer of help from one of the businesses that first suggested the idea (Shaun Samways, The Potting Shed)
Live music on Saturdays - feedback: - All finished now but as always mainly good feedback on this from retailers - Keir has photos to show how well supported some of these events were. Chairs were put out for the audience and this increased "dwell time" significantly.
NOTE: - can anyone let me know if they have an old PC about to be retired/updated as the Arts centre are desperate to replace their 15yr old one that is beyond its last legs?

Report - December 2011

Parking update: - The parking scrutiny committee has met a further two times since the last Board meeting and some good outcomes were obtained with the help of pressure from both DBID and the CofC. For the full report follow this link. Highlights are the improvement of signage in town, the release of up to an extra 37 spaces at Top of Town on Wednesdays, a commitment of up to £3000 to match fund DBID's parking voucher subsidy giving businesses 40% back of their parking voucher scheme contribution. The Dorchester Ambassador scheme was also supported by WDDC councillors and the pilot goes live on Saturday 10th December.
Shoppers Guide - Very well received product which I now have the full distribution list for if requested. It includes all advertisers in town (and all over Poundbury) and these can request top-ups when they need them, Loders & Shell garages, train stations, TIC's in town and in Weymouth, W.H,Smith at London Waterloo station, Sherborne Station, Bristol TIC, Temple Mead station plus a selection of other village shops/Po's.

There is to be a reprint by the end of Jan with the opportunity for those that missed the boat to be included for the 2nd edition.
Dorchester Cracker Night - Apart from the normal £5k contribution to lights, DBID's involvement was in promotional advertising and the projections in south street. I thought the choirs were excellent and the Town Crier competition was a nice addition of colour (DBID sponsored their event to the tune of a little over £200). Considering the weather it was a great success!
Social Media workshop: - Level II workshop held on the 1st November. Very well attended and we have had several requests to do a level III focusing on the business applications of Twitter so we will organise this early next year with the help of Key Multimedia.
Employment Law talk: - We had the kind offer of this from the lady who owns the Goodfillas premises. At the request of one or two businesses we held this after hours last Wednesday and we had a very good turnout of 16 people. The feedback was that it was a very useful and informative session so we may run something similar again next year (Humphries Kirk have expressed an interest in putting something on).
Website: - Traffic had dropped off in September for the first time in many months, but it was back up again in November with around 5000 unique visitors again.
Bike Racks: - We have been approached by the TC to see if they could have two in the Borough gardens. I did get back to them but am now awaiting their reply. We have had another request for a penny farthing and 4 additional racks near the market entrance opposite Brewery Sq.
Dorchester Brand: - Early in the new year we are going to be inviting local designers/artists to express their interest in coming up with a 'Brand Dorchester' design. We will promote this via the local press and the websites/blog etc. The successful 'brand' may first appear on flags placed in the Christmas tree holders around town.
Voucher buy back scheme: - We have just published the latest list of shops supporting the scheme. We have a few new ones join in now that there is a 40% subsidy back on the vouchers. Please encourage anyone else to get in touch if they would like to try it out.
Signage around town: - Very disappointed to note that the owner of the Hardye arcade chose to remove the excellent banners either end that were part-funded by DBID, Chamber, WDDC and the traders. I have a feeling that maybe their permission was not sought. The reason they gave is quite laughable, stating that they made the arcade look 'unsightly or tatty'. Whereas now of course it looks beautiful?
Dorchester Parking Ambassadors: - Finally with a flurry of publicity, we go live on Saturday 10th December with our intrepid team of 6 ambassadors led by Ann Snowden. They will mainly work two at a time with their major focus in the Charles Street car park. To remind you, they are there to (a) give a warm Dorchester welcome to visitors (b) get them parked briskly or direct them to another car park with spaces and then most importantly, give them assistance when needed to direct them to the town centre (via Hardye or Tudor arcades, Napper's Mite or Durngate street depending on where they need to go). They will also do their best to suggest the shops that might have what they want or the attractions they may like to visit. So their main purpose is to make sure we help them enjoy their visit and spend as much time/money here as possible in the shop/businesses in town.

As you know this is a pilot for the last two weeks before Christmas, if we get good feedback from the businesses and the public, DBID will be working on the 3 LA's to persuade them to collectively fund a more permanent version of the scheme for Wednesdays and holiday periods (including the Olympics).

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