Edinburgh team nominated for best UK town centre award
Published Friday 29 June 2012
A team from the City of Edinburgh Council is in the running for a prestigious national award for supporting the city's town centres.
Edinburgh has been
short listed by the Association of Town Centre Management for the 'Best UK Town Centre Team / Town Centre Partnership'
award. The team has been recognised for their
support driving up footfall and increasing spend in the city's designated nine
town centres. This has been achieved through a series of low cost, high impact
promotional activities. Tasked to
'build stronger town centres' the team made up of town centre coordinators works closely
with the Federation of Small Businesses,
Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, BIDs Scotland, local traders, all Council
departments and other external partners.
Established in March 2010, after the Council
received Town Centre Regeneration Funding for Portobello, the team has championed 'clean-ups' of the centres as well as rolling out citywide
animation of empty units by displaying local art and public information
boards. They have also produced street
banners and worked on many local
promotional activities.
The team also helped
to secure a 'Yes' vote for South Queensferry to become a Business Improvement District (BID)
this month and are now helping the Grassmarket area through the same process. These instant improvements have
helped revitalise and raise retailer confidence
and all of this activity has helped reduce
the vacancy rates in each of the nine town centres, which are all below the
Scottish average of 15.4%. Cllr Tom Buchanan, Convener of the
Economic Development Committee, said: "This is a fantastic achievement and I
wish the team luck in winning this national recognition for
Edinburgh. "We need to support our town
centres as they are suffering from the impact of online shopping, supermarkets
and out of town shopping centres. Our aim is to have vibrant town centres which
create and retain jobs and attract new investment enhancing civic
pride." The nine designated town centres are
Corstorphine, Gorgie/Dalry, Leith Central, Leith Walk, Morningside/Bruntsfield,
Nicolson Street/Clerk Street, Portobello, Stockbridge, and Tollcross.
The team also offer additional support across the local
centres in Edinburgh including the Royal Mile, West End, Thistle Street,
Roseburn and Easter Road. The award will be announced at a
dinner in Bristol on Tuesday, 3 July 2012.
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