RETAIL guru Mary Portas is coming to town!Last year, Loughborough was one of 27 towns in the country which received £100,000 under the Portas Pilot Scheme which is designed to re-invigorate the nation's high streets.
RETAIL guru Mary Portas is coming to town!
Last year, Loughborough was one of 27 towns in the country which received s100,000 under the Portas Pilot Scheme which is designed to re-invigorate the nations high streets.
Now, Loughborough is hosting the first national Portas event outside of London - where businesses will get the chance to ask questions, as well as be part of a number of sessions throughout the day.
Key sessions will look at vacant units, absentee landlords and ideas for bringing buildings back into use.
Mary will also take a brief tour of the town and will speak to market traders and businesses. The event takes place on Thursday, February 7, between 9.30am and 5pm at the Town Hall.
Roger Perrett, Chairman of Loughborough BID, said: This is an exciting opportunity for the Love Loughborough Partnership to showcase the terrific progress that is being made in re-invigorating the town centre offer. We look forward to sharing ideas with representatives from the other Portas Pilot Towns and of course, to hearing directly from Mary herself.
The Portas project is spearheading a revival in town centre fortunes and I am delighted that Loughborough is taking a lead, spurred on by the tremendous work of so many volunteers who are rising to the challenge.
We look forward to continuing our work with everyone who cares about the future of our town centre. Many thanks to the public who responded so well to our Christmas event programme and for the terrific support so far in 2013 it is really appreciated.
Coun Paul Harley, cabinet member for leisure and culture, said: Were thrilled and excited that Loughborough has been chosen to host this major event.
I think it shows that the work that has gone into promoting the town is paying off and that we are making waves nationally.
We are very much looking forward to welcoming Mary and other Portas Pilot town teams to our historic town on market day when the town is alive with shoppers and visitors.
The Portas Pilot scheme was launched following a Government review of the British high street. It invited town teams all over the country to submit proposals on how they aimed to rejuvenate their high streets.
The BID Loughborough team which entered the Loughborough application said the cash will be used to help new business start-ups, develop training programmes for traders at Loughborough University and to encourage the use of social networking to promote its businesses.
The Portas cash was matched by BID Loughborough, Charnwood Borough Council, Loughborough University, the Local Sustainable Transport Fund and Leicestershire County Council.
It will bring the total amount of money being spent by the BID Loughborough team on improving the town centre to s430,000.