The idea
Our key objectives are to:
• Engage with the local community to identify and promote a local identity for Sudbury.
• Enhance the overall retail offer and experience of visitors to the high street
• Improve the physical environment at the Southern gateway to the High Street
What we'll deliver
- Five businesses will be selected to participate in a six-month pilot business support programme
- • A business performance review to assess the strengths, weaknesses , opportunities and threats
- • A small grant of up to £1.5k to help them implement some of the actions highlighted in their business plan
- • A visioning exercise to help each business define their vision for the business
- • The development of an organic planning document designed to inform the short to long term future of the business
Why it's a great idea
Physical Enhancement
The poor physical environment of the high street is negatively affecting the local economy.
Sudbury has a compact High Street approached from the South through a large railway bridge which highlights its significance as a commuter town and a route to Wembley venues. The physical environment of Sudbury High Street, particularly around the railway bridge, is grim, giving a negative impression of Sudbury and causing people to feel unsafe particularly during the hours of darkness. Perhaps, because the high street is shabby, shoppers feel able to further neglect the environment by littering and by spitting chewing tobacco on the pavements leaving red stains.
As well as smartening up the appearance of five shops, this project would also improve the gateway to Sudbury by greening the land around the railway bridge.
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Steps to get it done
- Businesses in Sudbury High Street invited to complete interest form
- Applicant to demonstrate support will help the business meet the shopping needs and lifestyles of the modern customer
- Applicant to demonstrate support is needed to help increase business profitability
- Applicant to demonstrate support will improve the look / make businesst more attractive to shoppers / easier to use
- Applicant todemonstrate business support is needed to increase energy efficiency / more environmentally friendly
Smartening shops
Greening the land around the railway bridge.
Plant wild flowers on this land
Test the feasibility and local appetite for public art.
Find Local identity
Increase the participation of businesses in high street planning.
Fill vacant shops to provide community and commercial opportunities
Renovate two condemned local authority owned toilet blocks to make a training and enterprise centre
Aadd variety to the current retail offer
Include buildings, bridges, landscapes, natural features, recipes, dialect, dances, famous residents (past and present), places of worship, street names, history, stories, myths and legends.
STRA to build an ‘ABC of local distinctiveness’
Boost membership of STRA
Set up of a business sub group of STRA
