Date:

08.02.2005

Location:

The Three Swans Hotel, Hungerford.

Minutes issued on:

08.02.2005

Prepared by:

Polly Dickens

Participants:

David Collier, Chris Scorey, Chris Dodd, Jackie Penny, Mark Martin, Polly Dickens, Stephen Smyth, Chris Ruhl, Clive Adolph, Stephen Faulkner, David Wood, Keith Haddrell, Annie Griffiths, Jane Francis, Roger King.

Distribution:

2010+ Steering Group, Participants and other High Street Retailers.

Item.

Description.

Introduction.

It was decided that in order to present the results in the Business Survey that has been carried out by David Collier and the Economy Working Group of the Hungerford 2010+ Town Plan a business breakfast would be held on Tuesday February 8 th. It was hoped that this meeting would be an opportunity for the retailers on the High Street to generate some ideas that can help to promote local businesses and the town as a whole.

This meeting was a great success despite a rather disappointing attendance. We are making plans to hold a second meeting, at perhaps the more favoured time of 5.30 p.m. However we are now looking to involve many more people with the main aim of increasing the footfall in Hungerford.

A draft of the Business Survey Interim Report will be on the Town website www.hungerfordtowncouncil.gov.uk

Economic Development.

An important point was explained by Stephen Smyth (Economic Development, Europe & the Regions, West Berkshire Council), that Hungerford’s main problem as far as retailers are concerned is the demographic of the local population. The fact that we have an ageing population does not tend to help support the quality individual shops on the High Street.

In order to expand and for the retailers to thrive, Hungerford needs to provide affordable housing for second-time buyers, people between the ages of 30 to 40 years with a disposable income and therefore more spending power.

The larger employers in the area such as Vodafone find it extremely difficult to keep local young employees. The majority travel 30 or 40 miles to work which makes it unlikely that they will buy more than a sandwich as they pass through. If they were living locally they would be a potential source of income for many of the High Street retailers.

Housing.

Housing is a very sensitive and contentious issue and there is often confusion, for example between the need for social and affordable housing. The reality seems to be that future retail trends will be closely linked with and affected by future housing developments. The new development of 24 flats on the old Meadowview Squash Club for example will be ideal for people such as Kerridge employees who can have the potential to spend money in the town.

Tourism.

Another significant potential source of income comes from tourists. It has emerged that at present there is a distinct lack of marketing and promotion of Hungerford as a place to visit, yet we have so much to offer. By pulling together our skills and resources we can achieve so much more than if individuals attempt it on their own.

The South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA) has a pool of funding for the regeneration of Market Towns. Although Hungerford does not strictly need to be regenerated, by carrying out our Market Town Healthcheck (which the 2010+ team are doing at present) we will be eligible to apply for funding.

Up to £40,000 of matched funding (this means that we would have to find the equivalent amount from another source) is available for any one application. If we wanted to concentrate on promoting Hungerford as a great place for a day out, or as a base for a long weekend to visit the many neighbouring attractions such as the Cotswolds and Oxford , we could ask for funding to help us achieve this.

Parking.

Parking is another important issue, a major concern is over the cost of parking everyday, all day for employees on the High Street.

The current parking arrangements are that t here is one car parking area in Hungerford that provides car parking permits and that is the Station Road Car Park. The charges for these permits are Annual charge of £200 or Quarterly charge of £60. West Berks do not currently issue monthly or daily permits.

All other car parks are set for rates ranging from one hour to one day. Charges are set as to whether the car park is deemed a "long or short" stay.

Other Issues:

• Provision of coach parking
• A taxi rank
• The proportion of residential to visitor parking on the High Street.
• Parking on Bridge Street (in particular between The Bear and John O’Gaunt)
• Signs indicating location of Car Parks
• Providing parking for employees off the High Street e.g. Station Road Car Park

We all stand to gain if we can pull together and help each other. It is up to you, the retailers of Hungerford, to tell us what your needs are, and hopefully we can form a business group that can successfully promote Hungerford to the surrounding community and to outside visitors. We do not want to make any drastic changes, but we do need to think about some of these issues if we want to maintain the unique attractiveness of Hungerford in the future.

Contact Details.

If you would like to give us your views, or come to the next meeting please email

Hungerford2010@hotmail.co.uk

Next Meeting.

To be held in the Three Swans function room.

Thursday 17 th March

At 5.30 p.m.

Date:

11.02.2005

Location:

Herongate Leisure

Minutes issued on:

22.02.2005

Prepared by:

Polly Dickens

Participants:

David Collier, Chris Scorey, Chris Dodd, Polly Dickens, Mark Martin, Bill Acworth, Stephen Smyth, Sarah Ward, Karen Sperrey, Rob Chicken, Richard Stockwell, John Perkins, Annette Whittington, Charlie Woodhead, Alex Arundale.

Distribution:

Participants, Hungerford Chamber of Commerce, 2010+ Steering Group

Item

Description

Present Business Survey results

The recent Business Survey that has been carried out by David Collier and the members of the Economy Working Group found that the four perceived benefits that dominated the survey responses were:

• A good customer base
• Character and atmosphere of the town
• Hungerford’s location
• Good transport links

From a non-retail point of view it seems that there is a need for

• Improved hotel and conference facilities
• Affordable premises
• Less frustration caused by traffic congestion and availability of parking spaces
• More office services such as reprographics and office equipment

A draft of the Business Survey Interim Report will be available on www.hungerfordtowncouncil.gov.uk

Workforce, Location and Travel.

It seems that we could all benefit from businesses recruiting from the local workforce, however they seem to have difficulty in finding the right skills locally.

Often when office juniors are taken on it is difficult to keep them on after two years because they look to larger towns such as Newbury that have much more to offer young people. We need to ask younger adults what they want and why they generally do not want to stay in Hungerford.

Improving walking links and cycle routes between residential and industrial areas could help reduce car dependence.

Reducing the amount of commuting can help lower traffic volumes and therefore pollution and congestion.

Encouraging and supporting the employment of local people was deemed valuable but not always realistic.

Advertising vacancies locally initially was suggested.

The availability of parking is a major issue and can limit the potential size of workforce. Some businesses are recruiting people that can work from home. This means that skills can be gathered from anywhere in the U.K.

The transport links are also important, and for businesses in Charnham Park the railway is quite far away. Perhaps a bus service could be tested on this route.

The promotion of car shares was mentioned, however in reality this is rather limited.

Housing.

Stephen Smyth (Economic Development, Europe and the Regions, West Berkshire Council) explained the link between housing and the future development of Hungerford. In his view Hungerford is threatened by the lack of commitment from people between the age of 30 – 35 due to the high cost of housing. There is a need to build affordable housing for this demographic if the town and its economy are to survive. With regard to the High Street it is vital that the local community can support the economy and not just rely on visitors and tourists.

Town Council.

The Town Council kick started this project but volunteers in the community are now carrying it forward. There is still a lot of support from the Town Council and at a regional level from West Berkshire Council. There is also the encouragement that we will be eligible to apply for funding from the South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA) when we have completed our Market Town Healthcheck.

The recent bad press regarding Hungerford Town Council is not doing any good for the image of the town. It seems that this is having a far-reaching impact even on future development proposals. We need to get as many people in the community involved in this Town Plan in order to get a consensus of public opinion with regard to future development. Efforts need to be made to shift the emphasis onto issues rather than personalities and politics.

Business and Education Relationship.

Despite the previous Business Audit in 2002 which was a joint effort between the Hungerford Chamber of Commerce, Hungerford Town Council, the John O’Gaunt School and West Berkshire Local Agenda 21, it seems that the links between the schools and the business community have been little developed. It was decided that more effort could be put into work experience schemes, with the possibility of sharing pupils so that they are not in the same working environment all week.

The business community needs to approach the schools in a more pro-active way.

Improve links with adult education and training schemes.

Produce a leaflet showing what services are on offer, the types of training and education programmes, and a contact person – in the careers department/local businesses/HR departments. Spread this information via such places as the Library, Doctors Surgery and John O’Gaunt.

Small businesses expressed concern over the fact that they do not have many vacancies and therefore did not want to get peoples hopes up unnecessarily.

It was noted that Education (along with housing and employment) was an important factor for young families to consider when choosing where to live. In this respect Hungerford is an attractive location, especially now the John O’Gaunt School has improved in recent years. The number of pupils in the sixth form is set to increase significantly again in the Autumn.

Need to support Young Enterprise Schemes in schools.

Involve the Education Business Partnership by showing them that there is a demand for their services in the local area.

Development of an education and learning page on the town website.

Summary.

Overall there seems to be a need to improve the links between the business community and the schools in the area; and it seems that there are schemes such as the Education Business Partnership that have already been set up to help with this.

A regular forum will be arranged for the business community to meet up and discuss how to take these proposals forward.

Avoid fragmentation i.e. keep and enhance links between the business community and the community.

This should be an opportunity for the business community to let the Council, schools and the people of Hungerford know what they need.

Invite a representative from the Education Business Partnership and John O'Gaunt School to the next meeting.

Action PD

Contact Details.

If you would like to give us your views, or come to the next meeting please email: hungerford2010@hotmail.co.uk

Next Meeting.

Venue: Herongate Leisure, Charnham Park .

Date: Tuesday 15 th March

Time: 7.45 AM .

Date:

15.03.2005

Location:

Herongate Leisure, Charnham Park

Minutes issued on:

17.03.2005

Prepared by:

Polly Dickens

Participants:

David Collier, Chris Scorey, Chris Dodd, Polly Dickens, Mark Martin, Bill Acworth, Karen Sperrey, Richard Stockwell, Alex Arundale, Lin Bartlett, Andrew Krajewski, Susan Godfrey, Amanda Richards, Jill Greenland, Adrian Scroupe, Charlie Woodhead, Steve Kenchington.

Distribution:

Participants, Hungerford 2010+ Steering Group, Hungerford Chamber of Commerce.

Item.

Description.

West Berkshire Education Business Partnership.

Amanda Richards spoke about the Education Business Partnership (EBP) and how it aims to build partnerships between the business community and local schools. They encourage the development of vocational skills in the form of Work Experience Programmes. These schemes give local students the opportunity to learn about working environments and gain skills in many areas.

The EBP has also got schemes set up to cultivate skills that are related to the National Curriculum. Enterprise skills that include marketing and presentation skills are the main focus. There are project workers available to help by talking to students about anything that could be valuable towards helping to develop their enterprise skills.

West Berkshire Life Long Learning Partnership.

Susan Godfrey, the partnership manager explained how their aim is to increase participation in education and to raise the quality and standards of all types of learning, whether it be career development, individual learning or just for pleasure. They have a database called eezeeweb.org which lists all of the college or business courses, and training schemes that are on offer in West Berkshire .

They need input from people in Hungerford for this database. Clubs and organisations that are involved in leisure learning are also listed. There are currently 72 matches for Hungerford but there may be more. Gathering more information will help them identify areas that are lacking facilities which could lead to future provision.

This partnership acts as the glue between the training provider and the user by giving the contact details.

John O’Gaunt Community Technology College .

Being a Technology College means that Maths, Science, Technology and ITC are concentrated on in particular. A third of their funding therefore goes to the local community and businesses help by showing students about the real world. This is achieved by either the students visiting the work place, or by businesses coming into the school to talk to, and work with the students.

A full service Extended Schools system is in the process of being developed whereby the schools in the local area (John O’Gaunt, Hungerford Primary and the Croft Nursery) will become a community facility. This means that they will be open from 8 AM to 6 PM , five days a week, for 48 weeks of the year.

There are many proposals which the Schools will put forward, one of which will be to extend the range of adult learning and training facilities.

Andrew Krajewski, the Quality Manager/Technology Coordinator is planning to create projects to involve the students and develop their I.T. skills. We will hopefully look into giving some of the students the opportunity to develop the links between the business community and the Technology College .

Open Discussion.

Work Experience.

The idea of sharing a student so that they experience more than one work place, and to make it less of a strain for the businesses taking part was supported by EBP.

Unfortunately the technology College cannot be flexible as to when students can visit in the Summer Term. There are however long term placements where students spend, for example, one day a week in a placement over a period of six months.

There is also a mentoring scheme where people from the business community can give some of their time to give advice and help to students. It might be one day or just one hour, any amount can help.

If a business is willing to take on students on work experience they need to give their details to Amanda Richards at the EBP. Someone will then visit to carry out the required checks. If the placement is suitable then it will be added to the EBP database. If a suitable student is then found, the placement will be asked if they would like to take the student on. At this point the placement would still be given the opportunity to say no.

It has been decided that a training session for Work Experience and Enterprise Activities will be organised. Businesses will be invited to attend so that they can find out how to make the most out of a work experience student. People will be there to talk about their own experiences, both students and businesses. Businesses will also be able to find out the limitations and issues such as health and safety.

This session will be held on

Tuesday 10 th of May at the John O’Gaunt Technology College .

The session will start at 16:30 .

Local Thinking.

The idea of building a database of local businesses was put forward. This facility could advertise upcoming vacancies and information such as gaps in skills in the workforce or training days.

The idea stems from the need to emphasise and promote employment in Hungerford for people in Hungerford. By encouraging this we can help to reduce traffic movements around town, and make it easier for young local people to stay in the area rather than moving away in search of a job.

The training facility IT@Hungerford offers a range of programmes and is a cheaper alternative to other places. It is run by of Newbury College and is situated on Fairview Road , above Wilson ’s the convenience store.

6.

Many thanks to Herongate Leisure for the use of their bar.

Date:

17.03.2005

Location:

The Three Swans Hotel Function Room.

Minutes issued on:

22.03.2005

Prepared by:

Polly Dickens

Participants:

David Collier, Chris Scorey, Chris Dodd, Jackie Penny, Mark Martin, Polly Dickens, Stephen Smyth, Chris Ruhl, Stephen Faulkner, Annie Griffiths, Adrian Gilmore, Fiona Hobson, Ray & Jan Baigent, Anne Brown, Tony Peel, Christopher Robinson, Ian Thompson, Veronica Bailey, Roger Austin, Phil Roberts, Nick Furr, Greg & Rachel Furr, Robert Johnston.

Distribution:

Participants, 2010+ Steering Group, Chamber of Commerce.

Item.

Description.

Housing/Retail.

It was noted that, in reply to a statement claiming that new houses would be needed in order to increase footfall in the town and therefore boost sales, in actual fact more housing does not necessarily lead to more people shopping in the local area. If you look at Thatcham for example, there are many new housing developments and yet a relatively small retail sector in the town centre. Attention instead should be focused on maintaining a good selection of shops selling high quality goods.

The specialist shops that one finds in Hungerford have a very large catchment area. By promoting quality the businesses develop a loyal customer base. The large presence of antique shops for example, actually creates a trickle-down effect whereby customers from these shops that have travelled from far away often spend the day looking and buying in many other shops and cafes.

Similarly any development that is of the highest quality can serve to help the town attract more visitors and potential business.

The fact that Hungerford lies along an arterial road means that many people drive through. Despite the problems that are associated with this, we must remember that the passing traffic also helps the local economy. It has been the case in other towns that when they by-pass or pedestrianise their main street, this is only to the detriment of the businesses in that town.

Bridge Street Parking.

Strong opposition to the removal of parking between The Bear and the John O’Gaunt Pub on Bridge Street was voiced. This came with the claim that Traders would suffer a great loss in custom and eventually have to move location. The proposal to prohibit parking at peak traffic times in the morning and evening was accepted.

Due to the fact that there is no alternative to the parking that exists on Bridge Street , it cannot be taken away if we want to keep the Traders along there.

Steps should be taken to ensure that people who work in Bridge Street should not be allowed to park in the road for long periods of time so that more room is left for potential customers. The existing limit on parking duration should also be enforced.

There was some support to introducing a speed limit of 20 m.p.h. along Bridge Street .

Links over the town.

It was agreed that work to improve the links between Charnham Park and over the canal bridge would be beneficial. Again, the proposal to build a new footbridge over the canal was supported if the design was of a high quality and did not ruin the popular canal wharf scene. Appropriate design can serve to increase the quality of the town.

Coach Parking.

Many of the retailers felt that providing coach-parking facilities is very important, and vital if we want to attract more visitors to Hungerford.

The Station was put forward as an ideal location, the fact that rail replacement buses and coaches manage to operate on this route suggests that any coach could manage. Visitors could then make the quick and easy walk down the Cuttings to the High Street.

If a suitable location for coach parking was found then visitors could be safely dropped off and picked up some where in the centre of town.

Improving public toilets and parking will also directly help the drive to increase visitor numbers. Many people think that we need to provide more public toilets. We really need to provide for and look after our visitors well.

Group Promotion & Collective Action.

Doubling up on products can really help you to sell more as Robert from the Gentleman’s Shop explained. He told us all about how he suggests other products that are needed after the initial purchase. For example, offering a shaving brush after selling a razor. Robert also suggested exchanging leaflets so that information on the rest of the town can be given to people when they buy from a shop. We can all help each other by selling the town to our customers, tell people about the other shops and attractions and they might just be interested and take a walk around.

The antique shops put together trade papers that give information to customers. These are circulated around hotels and even other countries, and so giving information about not only antiques but also Hungerford in general. We should encourage our hotels and businesses to do the same perhaps.

The BMW garage would be happy to help out with group promotions. They are hosting a fashion show that is being organised by Annie Griffiths of Divine Right. Annie wants to get as many local businesses involved; each guest will get a goody bag which will have gifts from local shops or vouchers perhaps. A local salon will do the hair and makeup, nibbles are being provided as well, and all profits will go to charities chosen by the people who attend. This could be an excellent opportunity for retailers in Hungerford to promote themselves whilst raising money for a worthy cause.

A4 Diversion.

There were mixed views over the proposal to divert the A4 via Charnham Park . It is believed that reducing the amount of traffic along Charnham Street will result in a loss of trade for businesses along there.

A weight restriction along Charnham Street could be used to divert some of the HGVs along Charnham Way , but vehicles destined for Salisbury Road will still have to travel up the High Street.

Tourist Information Centre.

If the library is going to be redeveloped then it was thought that it would be an ideal location for a tourist information centre, provided it could operate at times when the library is closed.

The Corn Exchange was another possible location.

The idea of a temporary mobile tourist information facility was supported as a short-term solution.

Chamber of Commerce.

It was felt that the Hungerford Chamber of Commerce could do with some help. Ideally we do not want to form a new group, but would much rather work with the Chamber and help regenerate what has already been started.

Hidden Britain .

A group called Hidden Britain are willing to come and run a workshop which will help us find out about how to promote our town. The overwhelming conclusion of our meetings has been that we all need to help each other by promoting Hungerford more. By attracting more visitors we can boost many different sectors in our community. A date will be arranged and publicised.

10.

Many thanks to the Three Swans for the use of their function room.