Holywell Business Newsletter Summer 2009
Issue 24
Getting ‘em into town:
The Holywell website and the town’s tourism brochure, both financed by Holywell Town Council, have been playing their part in attracting visitors to Holywell in recent years. Now the town has another weapon in its armoury – illustrated tourist information panels erected at strategic locations around the town.
By the time this newsletter is published, these panels, showing places of interest in the town and the location of the town centre, will have been erected in several of the town’s car parks as well as at Holywell Leisure Centre and Holywell Library with the aim of encouraging people who visit these places to spend more time exploring the town and visiting the town centre.
These panels have been financed by Flintshire County Council from money made available to Holywell as a result of the Flintshire Towns Healthcheck Study carried out last year.
Promoting Holywell’s market
Some of the money made available to the town following the Flintshire Towns Healthcheck Study has also been used to purchase canvas banners that will be displayed at locations
overlooking the Tesco car park every Thursday to encourage people shopping at the store to also visit the town centre and hopefully make purchases at some town centre shops as well.
Town Action Plan
Following the Town Action Plan workshop held at St Peter’s Church in April organised by Flintshire County Council, the next step now will be to set up a Town Partnership for Holywell that will include representatives from the town’s business community, local councillors, the town centre manager and from voluntary organisation based in Holywell, to develop a long term vision and action plan for the town centre.
Flintshire County Council has also announced that Holywell and the other six towns in the county will share £180,000 it has made available for town centre regeneration projects during the current financial year. In addition to this funding, the seven towns will also share a further £120,000 from the Welsh Assembly Government’s Tidy Towns programme that will be used to carry out environmental projects.
The ex-Woolworths store
Since the closure of the town’s Woolworths store, one of the town centre manager’s priorities has been to try to locate another major retailer prepared to open a branch at those premises. Although two of the eight major retailers he’s contacted so far expressed an interest in opening a branch in Holywell, both said that although the store has 4,500 sq ft of floor space that it was too small for their needs. Efforts are still being made to find a tenant becasuse of the benefits it would bring to other nearby shops but as in all small towns, lack of large retail units is making this task difficult.
It’s not all bad news though
Boots the Chemists have bought the Alliance Pharmacy chain and will be re-branding Holywell’s Alliance Pharmacy premises at 67 High Street as a ‘Boots’ later this year.
It’s not an additional business for the town but nonetheless it is another well known national retailer that has decided to invest in the town hopefuly helping to convince other well known retailers that Holywell is a town worth investing in.
Shop Doctors Retail Help Programme
A summary of the feedback report from the consultants who carried out the Shop Doctors workshop learning based project earlier this year is now available to any interested business. A copy of the four-page report, which contains a checklist of what those who attended thought would be useful for their businesses and what specific things they intend to do following the workshop can be obtained from Holywell town centre manager, Medwyn Roberts. For a digital copy, e-mail Medwyn on med@impactcom.biz or phone him on 01745-710333 for a hard copy.
Mary Queen of Shops
Did you see the recent TV programme featuring Mary Portas, dubbed Mary Queen of Shops because of her retail expertise, when she visited Tewkesbury, a town whose retail businesses are in dire straits, to try to advise and help shop owners about what they can do themselves to improve trade?
If you did, seeing entire streets of vacant shops was a depressing sight but at least it showed that there are many towns in a worse position than Holywell. That of course isn’t much comfort, but the programme was also full of ideas about what small businesses can do to improve trade and what the owners of businesses in Tewkesbury are now implementing.
If you saw the programme, maybe you might like to try out some of the ideas on your own or, for them to have more impact, in conjunction with other Holywell businesses.
If you didn’t see the programme and would like to, you can watch it via BBC iplayer
If you haven’t already got access to BBC iplayer, you can download it free of charge from the internet. If you haven’t got access to the internet, which every business should by now have if it wants to compete on a level playing field with its competitors, go to Holywell’s internet café or the IT suite at Holywell library where staff will be more than happy to show you how to access this programme.
Wales in Bloom ‘09
Following Holywell being judged the winner in the Small Towns category of the annual Wales in Bloom competition last year, the town is pulling out all the stops to try to win again this year. Please do everything you can to keep the town centre looking as attractive as possible. A win brings much useful publicity for the town and attracts new visitors some of whom are bound to spend some money in some of the town’s shops.
Isn’t the internet wonderful?
Got a computer that you’re thinking of using for your business or thinking of buying one? Well, they all come loaded with some software but if yours hasn’t got exactly what you want for business use, don’t go out and buy it, download it free from the internet. All you need to do is go online and tap in www.openoffice.org and follow the instructions and hey presto you’ve got software you can use for word processing, compiling databases, preparing spreadsheets, providing you with graphics and even help you with presentations.
Welsh is good for business
A recent statement made by Deputy First Minister, Ieuan Wyn Jones AM, said that although research had shown that two thirds of people in Wales have said that bilingual signage and other marketing materials were important and that they would be more likely to buy from a shop that made some use of Welsh, that even during the current recession, many Welsh businesses were overlooking this as an additional marketing tool. If you would like any advice about bilingual signage or promotional literature etc, contact Holywell town centre manager, Medwyn Roberts on 01745-710333.
Flexible Support for Business
Flexible Support for Business, or FS4B as it will be known, is the Welsh Assembly Government’s new one-stop business help facility. Whatever your needs or problems, contact them on 03000 6 03000 to seek their advice.
Gŵyl Cadi Ha Festival
This year’s Gŵyl Cadi Ha Festival held on Saturday 2 May once again attracted several hundred additional people into the town centre which provided spin-off trade for some town centre shops.
The organising committee is now seeking ideas as to how the festival can be expanded and developed to attract more people to the town and keep them in the town centre longer.
If you’ve got any suggestions, let town centre manager Medwyn Roberts, who is a member of this committee, know what they are.
Walkers are Welcome
Holywell has now achieved Walkers are Welcome status and the town now has its own page on the Walkers are Welcome website www.walkersarewelcome.org.uk with a link to the Holywell town website www.holywell-town.gov.uk This, and several other other initiatives are all part of Holywell Town Council’s efforts to help the business community by attracting more people to visit the town.
Rural status for Holywell
Do you may remember Holywell Town Council’s successful campaign to get the town designated as a rural town several years so that businesses with a rateable value below a certain figure would become eligible for a reduction in business rates? Well, the town council via its town centre manager is again seeking rural status but of a different nature for the town which, if successful, will make the town eligible to receive grant-aid via the Welsh Assembly Government’s Rural Development Plan to finance a wide range of initiatives that would have the potential to attract more shoppers and visitors to the town.
Small Claims Mediation Service
If your business is ever involved in a small claims situation, rather than take the matter to court, you can now seek the advice of HM Court Services free mediation service that can save you time, frustration and money. During 2008 HMCS conducted more than 8,000 mediations settling 71% of them out of court. HMCS can be contacted on 01332-622533.
The new Holywell website
Members of a sub-group of Holywell Town Council are working on a plan to launch a new Holywell website to promote the town and its attractions and businesses to potential visitors. If you’ve visited any good ‘town’ websites and seen something on one or more of them that you would like to see included on the new Holywell website, e-mail town centre manager, Medwyn Roberts, on med@impactcom.biz and tell him and also let him have the domain name of the website where you saw it.
Will you sponsor an event that could bring you more business?
As you know, Holywell has now been designated as a Walkers Are Welcome Town and is already starting to attract more walkers to the town because of this. An offiical launch for the initiative has been planned for Friday 16 of October and as part of this, pupils from Holywell’s five junior school have been invited to enter a competition to design a poster, leaflet cover or webpage. The winner will receive £25 and the two runners-up will receive £15 and £10 respectively. Would you be prepared to sponsor one or more of these prizes in exchange for the publicity and goodwill it will create for your business?
If so, contact the Chair of Holywell & District Walkers Are Welcome, Mary Jones of Greenhill Farm, Bryn Celyn, Holywell on 01352-713270.
Don’t just wait for business to come through your shop door
To remain competitive many small retail businesses throughout the UK are doing more than waiting for customers to come through the shop door – they’re exploring other ways of remaining profitable like taking orders by e-mail and offering a home delivery service, selling
over the internet and even having their own online shop.
One business in Holywell that gets business in addition to that which they get from people visiting the shop is Rowlands’ Fresh Produce which has just won a contract to supply fruit and vegetables to the newly-established Strand Food Co-op. Can you think of anything new your business could do to generate more trade?
Grant aid
If you’re thinking of having a new nameboard above your shop, there may be a grant available from Visit Wales towards the cost if you’re prepared for it to be bilingual. For more details, phone Menter Iaith Sir y Fflint on 01352-744040.
Greenfield Valley
Holywell now has an entry in the 2009 Greenfield Valley Programme of Events brochure thanks to the generosity of the manager of Greenfield Valley Heritage Park. Hopefully this might persuade some of the thousands of people who visit the park each year to also visit historic Holywell town centre while they’re in the area.
Holywell Business News is financed and produced by Holywell Town Council with the aim of providing town centre businesses with useful business information.
