Bridgnorth hailed a 'rising star' of British retail after award nomination
Bridgnorth is in line for a national award recognising great places to live, shop and work.
The ‘Let’s Celebrate Towns’ initiative is a nationwide showcase celebrating hundreds of towns across the UK and is run by Visa in partnership with the British Retail Consortium.
Bridgnorth is shortlisted to be named ‘Rising Star’, as well as receiving up to £10,000 and a package of business and town support.
A panel of independent judges spanning business, industry and regional bodies will decide on eight overall winners to be announced at an awards ceremony in London in March.
Love Bridgnorth, which promotes the town, put together the award submission highlighting a range of exciting projects, including schemes and partnerships to drive investment and support local traders.
“We are delighted that Bridgnorth has been shortlisted as one of 30 towns in the UK," said Sally Themans, founder of Love Bridgnorth.
"In the application we demonstrated how the ShopAppy scheme, which brings businesses together to provide one online retail platform, is helping us to adapt to new challenges and opportunities in a rapidly changing environment.
“We also talked about the various promotions we run in the town such as ‘Let’s Get Local this Christmas’ and the social media platform of Love Bridgnorth which reaches over 150,000 people per month.”
Winning towns will receive up to £10,000 of direct investment into a local community project or initiative and receive a dedicated programme of support for local businesses.
“If we won we would use the grant for a more formalised tourism support through Visit Shropshire and Love Bridgnorth, as well as work on the feasibility of a possible BID being part of that ongoing support for our high street and town-wide businesses," Sally added.
“We would also look to continue the ShopAppy scheme. For seven years Love Bridgnorth has been run for free with no cost to the local council or businesses – it has been operated on the goodwill of a few volunteers.
“We want to be able to continue to serve the visitors and community of Bridgnorth, as well as our local businesses, and give Bridgnorth the greatest chance to thrive in challenging circumstances.”
