Improving our gateways

"It would be remiss of me not to mention the fabulous weather we have had this summer, give or take a few thunder storms. Luckily, they seemed to miss the Chesterfield Festival of Cricket at Queen's Park. The good weather and the cricket pulled many visitors to our town and, it seemed, the train was a popular choice of transport.

Each day of the week-long festival we witnessed a steady stream of cricket fans make their way from the station, up Corporation Street and through the heart of the Town to Queens Park. And soon the station will offer an equally appealing welcome as the town centre, as it is earmarked in the Borough Council's £500,000 Gateway Enhancement Scheme .

The improvements will happen at the Hornsbridge roundabout, which you can currently have a say on your prefered scheme and the Railway Station Link – which includes Crow Lane from the railway station past the Chesterfield Hotel and across the public footbridge, which links to Corporation Street and the town centre.

The train station is vital to our local economy. The excellent direct rail links Chesterfield has with major towns and cities is just one of the many reasons why companies and people choose to locate here. Testament to this is the fact that property developers and estate agents in the town are reporting a boom in sales. Miller Homes East Midlands has described Chesterfield as being "at the top of the wish list for many couples, families and individuals looking to buy."
It's an excellent good news story for the town. Things are very much starting to look up for both the local and national economy. We have never stopped investing in our town - the £4 million redevelopment of the market hall being a prime example - and this shows by the fact people want to come here to live, work and visit. So many towns have fallen victim to the recession and report ghost town high streets. Not us. We are booming.

To quote my colleague, Councillor John Burrows, Vice Chair of Destination Chesterfield: "We could have chosen to bunker down and ride out the recession, but we didn't. We chose to be proactive and forge ahead with our marketing plans and this shows in the recent employment, tourism and retail figures."

Chink of light at the end of the tunnel

Second only to our world-famous crooked spire, Chesterfield’s market is also a well-known and loved feature of the town and is an important part of our heritage. We not only have one of the biggest open-air markets in the country, but we will soon have a spectacular brand new indoor market.

The end is in sight for the £4 million renovation of our Market Hall. In October the awning will be lifted off the new glass roof, and the refurbished market hall will be unveiled and opened, once again, for business.

Chesterfield Champions were privileged to have a recent behind the scenes tour mid renovation and, without exception, everyone felt excited and positive about what this major investment means for our town and economy.  Aside from what you’d expect in a market, there will be office space and, more importantly, incubation studios specifically for new and fledgling businesses. This must make Chesterfield market not only a great place to shop but also a rich vein of business development.

Externally, the Market Hall will add yet another stunning piece of architecture to our town. All too often a visit into Chesterfield town centre involves a tunnel-vision approach. However look above the shop fronts and you will see some historic and grand buildings that, when put together, make us a very attractive town and tourist destination.  It can come as no surprise that we were voted as the Coach Friendly Town or City of the Year at the annual Coach Tourism Awards earlier this year.

Now we just need to sort out the main gateways to Chesterfield town centre to ensure they don’t let down our Town, which is so full of character. I am confident that such improvements will happen sooner rather than later as there are plans to transform the Donut roundabout area in an estimated £50 million development scheme into a high quality shopping and leisure area, and to improve the ‘Donkin’ roundabout at the entrance to theTown.

Similarly there is strong interest for Chesterfield Waterside on both the housing and commercial elements of the scheme and it is hoped that initial works will start towards the end of the year.

I for one see a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. Construction projects across the country, indeed the world, have slowed in recent years however the economy is picking up and nowhere is this more clear than Chesterfield.

Markham Vale for one continues to attract investment. Already more than 200 jobs have been created on site in the past couple of years and now Ready Egg is building a new factory which will create 50 Jobs. I am confident we will hear more success stories like this going forward as investors recognise the potential in Chesterfield and commit money and resources.

Chesterfield - A Welcoming Town

Thanks to Barratt Homes and the European Regional Development Fund £500,000 will shortly be invested into developing  Chesterfield town centre’s key gateway locations – Hornsbridge Roundabout and the Railway Station Link. The enhancements will all come together to create a ‘warm welcome to visitors’ to our town.

However, the Town’s  ‘warm welcome’ goes well beyond the visual enhancement of sculpture, art installation, signage, planting and way marking. It’s about the people – businesses and residents – and how we project ourselves in person and online to promote our pride and affection for the area and to create the ultimate warm welcome and reason to visit Chesterfield.

Recently, 15 people underwent training to become ambassadors for Chesterfield.  The scheme is for front line staff and residents in the town and recognises the important role they play in shaping the impressions of the Town to visitors, whether they are here on business or pleasure. Speak to a Chesterfield Ambassador and not only will they be able to give you the low down on the town’s regeneration plans, but also where to eat, what’s on and how many tonnes of lead were used to make the Crooked Spire -  approximately 33 tonnes in case you’re interested.

The Internet is also extending the message about our Town’s ‘warm  welcome’ nationally as well as abroad. Social media has become a powerful marketing tool for both DestinationChesterfield and the many independent retailers here. They are using Facebook and Twitter to reach out to people and make them aware of everything that the town has to offer, resulting in them being sought out by the many tourists who visit Chesterfield each year. One town centre independent trader now has customers from as far afield as Scotland, Canada, Australia and America.

Latest tourism figures for Chesterfield show the town is growing in popularity as a place to visit. The boost in the number of tourists has also increased the amount of money being spent in the town by 11% since 2010; that’s way above the 2% increase for the East Midlands region and also tops the 7% increase for the Peak District and Derbyshire.

Recently Destination Chesterfield has been encouraging people to add the #LoveChesterfield Twibbon to their Twitter accounts in order to shout about how great the town is and what we love about it. This was done in response to a cruel jibe a national newspaper (Metro) had at Chesterfield after Sheffield was declared as the happiest city in the UK. Residents and businesses have come out in force in support of the town.

While we are investing physically in developing Chesterfield by creating a visually pleasing reception for visitors, equally important are the people who they come into contact with – you! Luckily, our town has welcoming and friendly people in abundance. I feel  sure l that some of the good humour of Cestrefeldians influenced our neighbour’s happiest city award!!

Local businesses invited to Celebrate Chesterfield

Celebrate Chesterfield Event November 2011 at the Casa Hotel

 

Two and a half years ago we launched Destination Chesterfield to over 100 businesses who attended the opening event at the former B2net Stadium. Since then the project, which aims to raise the profile of Chesterfield, and raise awareness of the Business and investment opportunities available in the town, has I believe been a great success.

As a result of this progress, Destination Chesterfield has secured further funding from the European Regional Development Fund to continue the project through to December 2015; this is great news for Chesterfield and for those of us who do business in the town.

We would like to celebrate the achievements of the project, and the Town’s businesses to date, and to launch to our plans for the next 3 years. So if you run a local business, we’d like to invite you to attend the Celebrate Chesterfield event on the 28^th March at the Proact Stadium starting at 08.00.

Celebrate Chesterfield will be an ideal opportunity for you to meet some of the key people who are working to achieve our goal of making the town a “contemporary destination”, to network with other Chesterfield businesses, and be the first to hear our exciting plans for moving the project forward in 2013 and beyond.

Places are limited so please confirm you attendance by visiting and booking online at www.chesterfield.co.uk/celebrate no later than Friday 22^nd March

I very much hope you can join us for what I’m sure will be yet another successful and well attended event and continue to support Destination Chesterfield in promoting this great town.

Chesterfield and North Derbyshire Manufacturing and engineering companies voices their opinions

 

Firstly Happy New year to all readers of the blog! May 2013 deliver all that you wish for.

In last months column I introduced the new Chesterfield Manufacturing and Engineering Forum. Destination Chesterfield recently held the first event which was hosted and chaired by fellow Destination Chesterfield Board Member, James Brand, Managing Director of United Cast Bar Ltd.

A packed board room of businesses discussed the latest issues arising from their respective sectors and how they can work collaboratively in the future to grow their businesses. Subjects discussed included improvements to the process of training, skills, apprenticeships etc including the potential collaboration with educational establishments, and raising the profile of the manufacturing and engineering sector as a whole in Chesterfield.

There was also an update on the Regional Growth Fund, which is available to Chesterfield businesses from funds allocated to both Sheffield City Region and D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnerships to support businesses in the Town to grow and create new jobs.

The input from the businesses that attended the forum will feed directly into the development of the next phase of the Destination Chesterfield delivery Plan which will be launched in March.

The next Chesterfield Manufacturing and Engineering Forum will take place in April. If you are a Chesterfield or North Derbyshire manufacturing or engineering business and would like to register interest in attending or would like to find out more about becoming involved with Destination Chesterfield please e-mail the Destination Chesterfield Manager, Dominic Stevens-- dominic.stevens@dncc.co.uk.

 

Funding success for Chesterfield

There has been great news over the past few weeks with funding secured for businesses to develop and grow in Chesterfield.

 

£25m has been secured from the Regional Growth Fund for Sheffield City Region and Chesterfield has been fortunate to be part of this process. We know there will be just under £2m of the money for Chesterfield businesses, with potentially more for other companies in future, and this will be boosted to £10.1m as the businesses themselves put funding into the projects. The projects will secure 25 existing jobs and create an additional 205 jobs, all within Chesterfield borough. The majority will be related to new investment in manufacturing, both the development of new products and the introduction of new processes.

 

D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership also secured £5m from the Regional Growth Fund for the ‘Unlocking Investment Growth’ programme will means small and medium sized businesses can apply for grants of between £50,000 and £1m, which can be used to invest in individual schemes which help to create jobs, support business expansion and generate economic growth.

 

Chesterfield has also been successful in its bid for a £10k grant from the government for a Town Team Partner project. The bid, which was put forward by Destination Chesterfield and had the full support of the town’s MP, Toby Perkins and Chesterfield Borough Council was in response to the earlier unsuccessful bids for the Portas Pilot initiative.

 

This is excellent news for Chesterfield, the £10,000 funding will be added to £20,000 generated by the Chesterfield Champions scheme to launch ‘Incubation Street’, a new business start up scheme for Chesterfield. These are exactly the types of initiatives Destination Chesterfield and the Chesterfield Champions Scheme were set up for and we thank them all for their contributions which will go towards supporting the growth of the next generation of businesses in Chesterfield.

 

Details of how these funds can be accessed will be promoted on www.chesterfield.co.uk once full details are available.

Top of the class for retail

A national report revealed that Chesterfield is bucking the north-south divide with low shop vacancy rates. The latest figures from the Local Data Company (LDC) gives a detailed insight and analysis of 506 town centres and Chesterfield is third best of the largest centres in the country with just 8.7% of shops being empty, compared to the likes of Nottingham (30%), Stockport (28.4%) and Sheffield (26.1%).

Figures from the LDC report show an increase in shop vacancies across the East Midlands from 16.7% in 2011 to 17% in 2012. Chesterfield (8.7%) is the only town centre in the region that is in the top ten featuring amongst a predominant list of Southern based locations, including Central London, Cambridge and Kingston upon Thames.

The good news doesn’t end there on the retail front. A new Debenhams store will be opening shortly and there will be a further phase of development on the Ravenside Retail Park after two additional units have been approved and are due to be completed next summer.

Works are starting on the refurbishment of the Market Hall and the proposed Northern Gateway Projects and Walton Works are working their way through the planning process.

At Destination Chesterfield we want to continue to build on this success and will be once again running a marketing campaign on the run up to Christmas to attract people to shop and spend their leisure time in the town. Last year’s campaign was a great success generating up to an estimated £500,000 into the local economy.

Part of our inward investment campaigns will target the retailers and leisure providers we would like to see in the town, building on what is already here and we will also be launching a number of the initiatives that were included in our Portas Pilot bid thanks to the in-kind and financial support of the Chesterfield Champions.

These positive results can only be achieved by working together and this success is down to the hard work of the town centre businesses, agents, Chesterfield Borough Council and everyone one who works, shops and lives in the town centre.