J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 1 BID BULLETIN

T H E L A T E S T S W A N S E A C I T Y C E N T R E N E W S

We were pleased to hear a fresh announcement made at the end of January of further financial support to firms. We would urge all our BID area businesses to check their eligibility via the Business website, as detailed later in this BID Bulletin. This continues to be a challenging time for Swansea City Centre and we are working hard to fight for Swansea and our businesses. We are also seeing many reasons for optimism, with new investors coming to the city centre and with Swansea Central and other developments improving the face and the prospects of our locale as we speak. LISTEN TO KEY SPEAKERS SHARE GOOD NEWS FOR SWANSEA AT OUR ZOOM EVENT Swansea BID is pleased to have teamed up with UWTSD (University of Wales Trinity Saint David) to deliver a series of Zoom events, coming up in March, April and May, with high profile speakers sharing the latest news and upcoming development that will affect our city centre businesses. We will let you know times and dates when these are finalised, and we look forward to seeing you there.

www.swanseabid.co.uk | [email protected]

REPRESENTING YOU AT WALES WEEK LONDON Wales Week London is looking closely at the future of the High Street in Wales, and BID’s key role in this, at their upcoming online event.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

We are happy to be teaming up with other Welsh BID’s, including Cardiff, for a panel discussion, with business media, via Zoom, to discuss the pressing issues facing our High Streets and how Welsh city centres can evolve and thrive. Wales Week in London runs between February 2 and March 7 and we will keep you updated on the finer details once the event is finalised.

IN THE NEWS As ever, we have been working hard to keep your stories in the news, and we were pleased in January to have shared BID and BID area business news across a range of online, and print publications – as well as via out own dedicated BID and Big Heart channels. Our media activity alone saw at least 31,000 people see your stories. This might be a quiet time in some respects, but there is always a lot of Swansea BID activity going on.

www.swanseabid.co.uk | [email protected]

SHOWING OUR LOVE VIA TRUE HEART One of the most widely-read of our BID area stories in January was that of Stacey Hancock who has set up Driftwood in Princess Way. Stacey’s story is an inspiring one – the hard-working mum has had to deal with homelessness in the past and now she is supporting vulnerable people in her community at this attractive arts hub.

Stacey’s story was shared by our Big Heart of Swansea team via its True Heart campaign on Instagram and across our other social media channels. If you have an inspiring tale to tell about the founding or the success of your business, please get in touch with [email protected] and we will show it some love. We are also doing regular Facebook Live events with our BID Businesses, having featured Hugh Philips and The Foodie Room. These tend to be focussed around a red-letter day, like Valentine’s, Veganuary, or Christmas and we plan to feature others for Easter and St David’s Day. If you would like to be involved in one of these in the future, please get in touch.

The views from the live video with Hugh Philips Butcher were 12,000, so this is a great way of reaching new people.

HAVE YOU REGISTERED AN INTEREST IN WORKING WITH THE NEW ARENA? If you are a food and beverage or a building firm, you might want to register your interest in providing services to the state-of-the-art there that is being built in Swansea city centre. Businesses must register their interest by the end of February. Following a filtering process, ATG will respond to suppliers within 14 days with a questionnaire.

Email: [email protected]

www.swanseabid.co.uk | [email protected]

LEAN ON BID BENEFITS During these testing times it is more important than ever to make sure you are getting the most out of your BID Benefits. Find them below.

SWANSEA BID BENEFITS

They include reduced parking rates for city centre workers, a reduction on parking season tickets for city centre workers, advertising, printing and media discounts, free job vacancy listings, legal consultations, discount on insurance policies, risk assessments, business restart sessions, and much more.

GOOGLE SUPPORT We are happy to be able to provide our BID area businesses with support to use handy Google tools, via our membership with the ATCM (Association of Town and City Centre Management).

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

You can tap into free tools and training to benefit your business via the ATCM workshops below, including how to make best use of Google Maps.

www.swanseabid.co.uk | [email protected]

A MORE FAMILY FRIENDLY WIND STREET IS A STEP CLOSER Plans to make one of the most popular streets in Swansea city centre more family-friendly are a step closer as South Wales contractor, Griffiths, has been chosen to carry out the work for Swansea Council.

The work will start shortly, in line with pandemic guidelines, with Wind Street being a key element in the £1bn transformation of the city centre. Swansea BID has worked closely with the council to help deliver this project and to drive change in this part of the city. The Wind Street project will see the street become more accessible to pedestrians and more attractive to businesses wishing to trade outdoors.

The aim is for Wind Street to be a family-friendly all-day café quarter with traffic restricted to 7-11am for business loading only, so, the street will be free of vehicles during day and evening trading periods.

www.swanseabid.co.uk | [email protected]

REPRESENTING YOU AT A RETAIL ROUND TABLE Swansea BID Chief Executive, Russell Greenslade, will take part in Business Club’s panel discussion in March – The Changing Face of Retail. He will represent our valuable city centre retail business, sharing his views on the future of retail, its challenges and opportunities. We know some of you are members of the business club, so we hope you might get involved too. Click below to find out more.

SWANSEA BAY BUSINESS CLUB THE CHANGING FACE OF RETAIL

THE LATEST FINANCIAL SUPPORT PACKAGE A new package of financial support was announced at the end of January. Firms receive Small Business Rate Relief with a rateable Vale of £12,000 or less will be legible for an extra £3,000 payment. Firms with a rateable value of up to £150,000 will be eligible for an extra £5,000. Support is also on hand for some supply chain business. Find eligibility criteria and further details below.

BUSINESS WALES SUPPORT FOR BUSINESSES

www.swanseabid.co.uk | [email protected]

ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR SURVEY Many thanks to the BID area businesses who gave their feedback to the survey we issued about conduct in Swansea city centre. Your views will help us inform our partners at South Wales Police around anti-social behaviour in our BID area.

KEEP YOUR RISK ASSESSMENT UP TO DATE Once again we have teamed up with Green Hat Consulting to help you keep your Covid-19 risk assessments up to date. It is a legal requirement to have these fully in place if you are open to the public or you have a workforce in your premises. Find the new guidance below.

RISK ASSESSMENT

PPE PLANNING Once the Government advises that non-essential businesses can open again, we will be providing PPE to BID businesses once more. We will keep you updated on this.

www.swanseabid.co.uk | [email protected]

WELCOME TO THE SWANSEA CITY CENTRE FAMILY Let’s extend a warm welcome to the new businesses that have joined us in Swansea City Centre in January, including:

IN OXFORD STREET ON HIGH STREET IN PRINCESS WAY

KEEP IN TOUCH, STAY INFORMED Make sure you keep up to date with all the latest BID news that affects your business, by updating your contact details with us. Simply scan this QR code:

We update our social media channels and VISIT OUR DOCUMENTS website with the most recent news from PAGE HERE the Welsh Government so please keep an VISIT OUR NEWS eye on these. PAGE HERE

Many thanks to our BID area businesses for continuing to be mindful of the guidance from the Welsh Government regarding washing hands, wearing face coverings and being strict about who they come into contact with in their daily lives.

We’re all in this together.

www.swanseabid.co.uk | [email protected] Swansea Business Improvements Limited | 1 Picton Lane | Swansea | SA1 4AF