Report - October 09

• New businesses - We are getting close to 30 new businesses in town with three new in Antelope, two new in Tudor and more to come. Fantastic news and a good indication that DBID is having a positive effect in town.

• Car parking - The hottest topic in town presently and DBID is working very hard to come up with solutions and alternatives to the current arrangements. Taking car parks first (run by WDDC), I have been in a series of meetings over the last two months with the urgent aim to get a better system in place rather than just waiting for POE with is still a way off (mainly on cost grounds at £60-90k per car park!)

  My research identified that an all-new technology is rapidly overhauling POE in the form of Pay By Phone (PBP). Some of you know how this works already but essentially you arrive in the car park, dial a local number, enter a 4 digit car park code displayed by the PAD machine and select how long you wish to park. Then you just go shopping! The really clever bit is that 10 minutes before your ‘ticket’ expires you get a text alerting you and inviting you to extend your time remotely! Brilliant!

  We have our pilot agreed and it will go live before the end of November! Better still, it will be rolled out for the whole of West Dorset, and once registered on the system, someone using Ring Go in Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole or more locally in Lyme or Bridport can come to Dorchester, park and dial as the system will recognise them from their phone number!

• On-street meters - I have a meeting with David Jenkins (DCC) (and a meeting with Tim Westwood on Tuesday) to update him on BID matters and appeal for common sense and an urgent review of the meter setup.

  I have and I am going to propose the following solution:

  1. Get rid of the things! - unfortunately never going to happen. Too much investment wasted. So, find a way to make them work such as:
  2. Increase maximum time to 2 or 3 hours depending on location (1 hour is not enough for some people who move slowly and cannot walk all the way from the car parks (but are not registered disabled))
  3. Make it FREE between 4.00pm and 9.00am DBID wants to boost the local economy by encouraging cafes andf shops to open a little later than present and if parking in Dorch EVERYWHERE was free after 4.00pm it might help this happen.
  4. Adopt the same PBP pilot that WDDC are using to make it easier to use and stop the shops all acting as change dispensers - they are not happy about this either!

• On street recycling - WDDC assure me that we will have our wonderful new triple purpose rubbish bins in time for the Christmas Cracker.
• Open 4 Business - I took part in the awards judging a few weeks ago.
• Levy collection - going well - a very small number still to pay but some more VC’s (voluntary contributions) from well-wishes and supporters.
• Roundabouts - Thanks to intervention of Oliver Letwin MP we are in dialogue with the Highways Agency who will work with us to identify suitable features for a trunk road roundabout.
• Litter bins - WDDC have no budget at present but are trying to see if they can start the roll out process before summer is over with a couple of new bins.
• Website - We now have a blog, and the optimisation that we are paying for is beginning to have a good effect on traffic. More content with a full set of museum pages, personal shopper etc.
• Redesign of bag - Currently postponed due to limited quality of entries so far.
• Sk8Jam event - A great day, DBID banner was there and proud. Thanks to Brian, Gerald, Keir and Alistair for helping. The Board has agreed a donation to the skate park committee as a show of support and in recognition of the draw the facilities have created bringing people to town. See photo page on the dorchesterdorset.com website.
• Christmas Cracker - We have subsidised advertising in the programme and for the Wessex FM package and are again providing most of the funding for the lights.
• Resort Magazine - The new edition is out and Dorchester has 6 pages again. Well done everyone!!
• The Local Index - The Dorchester edition is now out and as well as a subsidy for advertisers we negotiated a subsidised free line entry for every business registered on this site - another huge benefit of registering.
• Hanging basket pilot Durngate street - With the arrival of Victoria’s Closet we have a very active shop owner who is already helping to transform this part of Dorchester. I did my customary meet and greet as I do with every new business in town. This is partly to give them a warm welcome, find out a bit about what they do and tell them all about the DBID and what we are doing for Dorchester. Victoria and Tony have embraced the BID and are already benefiting from some of the projects, having had quite a bit of advertising subsidy and by registering on the DBID directory.

  Victoria came to me to discuss her ideas for brightening up Durngate Street a little with tubs and hanging baskets and we agreed to offer a small subsidy towards the cost of the baskets (£10 per basket). We are all in favour of getting shop owners to ‘buy in’ to a project rather than just being provided with something that they have no financial investment in. See the new sign at the head of Durngate Street. Thanks also to Alistair for his involvement here too.

  If this pilot project is a success, then DBID could consider rolling this out in other areas of town. The plan would be to identify a representative of that area (like Victoria) who would act as a local champion and co-ordinator. We would also be partnering the Town Council in some areas as I have identified that they have some spare capacity to offer a few more baskets on their scheme too.

Report - August 09

• Litter Bins - With sponsorship from DBID in partnership with WDDC, new bins will be a first in West Dorset offering on street recycling and a great good news story for the DBID and the Council
• Welcome packs - more packed and circulated including to some estate agents in town - a new initiative.
• Map - Possibility of tying up with councils on this. The old maps have nearly run out and need reprinting as I spotted at TIC.
• Cycle racks - We are talking to DCC about more cycle rack hardware for town looking to add a lot more racks and make them more obvious - possibly with some BID branding.
• Website - we are still getting a lot of new registrations. We have started the site promotion work. The statistics for number of monthly individual visitors are looking good.
• Reusable bag - the redesign competition is underway in several schools which I visited.
• Subsidised advertising - we are now subsidising advertising in the Echo, the Chamber magazine, the View From and Resort Magazine. This project has been very well received and take up is excellent.
• The Local Index - This is a new and very useful publication for Dorchester and DBID is working with them to make maximum impact and usefulness for the town residents and visitors.
• Paper Directory - We are considering a paper version of the business directory which already exists in out Town Promotion website, www.dorchesterdorset.com. This may come after the local index launch. We will need to mail to all businesses in the area to give a final push to get registered so they would be included in the directory.
• Levy collection - very few levy payments are still to come in. The rate of collection is faster than last year and indicative of the growing support DBID has gained.
• Publicity - we are continuing to produce a stream of good news stories for Dorchester which must be adding to the "buzz" about the town.
• WDDC Parking etc - Keir and I have planned a meeting with Robert Gould and senior officers at WDDC about Pay On Exit car parking, the completion of South Street pedestrianisation surfacing, ladder boards and a map for Dorchester.

Report Archive

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• January 2009 report
• September/November 2008 report
• July/August 2008 report