It’s about.. It’s about you and Me! It’s about shopping in your street, your town, your District It’s about jobs and community It’s about investing today to ensure prosperous high streets in the future It’s about making our towns better places to live, work and visit

It’s about supporting Local… £1 spent with a local supplier puts £1.76 of value back into the local economy

Local v Online According to figures from the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) -online spend saw an increase of 15% compared to 2012, with £540m being spent last year. Our spending habits will have an impact on the future of our high streets and we may be unable to directly influence this But we can… Engage with local businesses and further encourage partnership efforts Offer advice and support to businesses Promote ‘shopping locally’ to residents and visitors

Supporting our local communities in their efforts to revive and revitalise our high streets and town centres

Project Objectives Champion the work of existing town and village partnerships Raise the profile and share examples of good practice Signpost high street enquiries and support local high street regeneration Work with partners to promote and market their town and villages Improve perceptions of Wealden’s high streets

What’s happening already

Since January we have…. Met with nearly all the projects 14 town and villages Held networking events to share ideas Updated the high street surveys (noting the type of businesses and numbers of empty shops)

What type of businesses are on our high streets?

High Street businesses and services

Local visits to high street businesses

We have… Organised a Marketing Your Town event in partnership with Towns Alive and Hidden Britain Supported ‘Love Your Local Market’ fortnight Helped to promote the farmers markets by organising a number of community chef sessions Supported the markets through new signage, press releases, social media promotion and the updating of the Farmers Market leaflet

We have.. Produced the first edition of the Streets Ahead Newsletter Drafted a shoppers survey and piloted this at the summer PlayDays events Drafted a business survey in partnership with the FSB (available soon on the Wealden website)

We will also be Promoting Christmas shopping events and activities through the Streets Ahead xmas flyer Looking at ways of how we can support Small Business Saturday (6 th Dec)

Attracting visitors to the area New Town Maps which will focus on promoting the high street as well as local attractions and things to do. These new leaflets will be distributed up to a 2 hr drive away via our tourism leaflet distributor We also promote events through our events listing and Social media

We will also be supporting The Pub is the Hub initiative, working in partnership with ESCC and Pub is the Hub

The team can provide ideas and advice on.. Social media – Twitter and FB – training for businesses Developing Apps - QRcodes Branding – creating an identity Signage to ‘high streets’ Town and village events Online presence and selling Diversification- attracting new markets Letter to shopkeepers Leaflets/guides/maps/notice boards Loyalty Schemes Window Dressing

Summary of what’s next High street business and shoppers survey Christmas leaflet promotion Continue to support town and village working groups Review of the Streets Ahead project and report back in early 2015

For further information Sign up for the Streets Ahead newsletter Contact the Community and Regeneration Team - ETC Fb- streetsaheadcommunity