Chelmsford’s image is important for all its businesses. For our retailers and leisure businesses it means more visitors and more spend. For our office and commercial sector it means a more attractive offer for the talented workforce we need. We will work in the following areas to ensure Chelmsford remains seen as Essex’s number one destination for visitors and employees.
Marketing
Partnering with local businesses and organisations, we have coordinated a marketing strategy that brings together and enhances the efforts of different partners in the city, including:
- Launching a customer facing brand and PR campaign for the city centre to cement Chelmsford as the premier destination in the region. We ensure positive advertisement through various channels including digital, print, and outdoor media. ‘Chelmsford For You’ is a platform helping businesses to present a positive image on social media and does the same for Chelmsford as a whole
- A digital strategy has been created via Chelmsford For You, encompassing visitor information for local tourism venues as well as the BID area, ensuring the site includes extensive and up to date information, for example on ‘what’s on’
Events
Chelmsford continues to be the host of many successful events such as 3-Foot Festival, Dixiefields & Essex Pride. We want to ensure that major events bring greater benefits to the city centre. We will work with partners such as local festivals and the Council to help convert local events into higher footfall, spend and profile for the city centre, and provide opportunities for businesses to be involved.
We will identify gaps in the city’s events programme and organise high quality activities to fill them at key times of the year. These could include, for example, themed seasonal markets, food festivals, carnivals and a programme of street entertainment.
An events programme should aim to benefit a broad range of businesses in the city centre and raise Chelmsford’s profile.
Animating
Our rivers can make a huge contribution to the atmosphere and culture of the city centre. They can be places for performance, floating cafes, attractive lighting and greenery. We will work with local authorities and organisations to deliver ambient lighting along our city centre waterways, as well as ensuring the safety of visitors walking alongside the river.
We will lead on the delivery of a city-wide Christmas lights scheme and switch-on event to ensure the timing and locations maximise the benefit to businesses. We will organise a small number of well-coordinated and promoted late-night openings in the run up to Christmas with additional activities to add to shoppers’ experience.
Business Diversity
We will put empty units to work for Chelmsford, for example by operating them as temporary spaces for pop-up concept stores or community projects, helping to incubate new businesses and animating areas.
We will support the Council and landlords in their efforts to champion the city to new businesses.