Is Thame’s a ‘Great British High Street’?

THAME’S High Street, which has seen many innovative schemes introduced over recent years to encourage increased footfall and its attractiveness to visitors, is being entered into this year’s Great British High Street Competition.

The scheme was initiated by the Department for Communities and Local Government, and is being sponsored by Boots, M & S, Costa, the Post Office and Google. Thame’s entry is being co-ordinated by professional Copy Writing Consultant, Helen Johns who lives locally, with the help of Sarah Pracey, a PR consultant who is behind the successful PR on the Thame Food Festival, and with the support of 21st Century Thame, Thame4Business and the town council.

THE PRIZES

The winners (three in each of seven categories) will get a share of a £50,000 cash prize, plus mentoring support for retailers. Also, Google will be offering digital workshops to 100 retailers in each of the seven winning locations of the Great British High Street Competition. Retailers will learn how to use social media, develop their websites and get one-to-one advice from Google’s expert technicians.

Last year’s ‘Winner of Winners’, was Belper, in Derbyshire, which was also the winner in the market town category – which is the category in which Thame is being entered. Interestingly, like Thame, Belper is a small town that generated a lot of objections to a proposed Tesco store, a plan that was later shelved by Tesco.

‘A WONDERFUL BOOST TO THE TOWN’

Belper has said that: “Winning the Great British High Street has been a wonderful boost to the town, stimulating interest and encouraging new partners to work with us.

“Local residents are more aware of how special their town is and the publicity has encouraged visitors from neighbouring areas to make a trip to see what the town has to offer. It has also generated a number of new ideas which we hope to implement to allow the town to continue to improve and build on the success. We’d really encourage villages, town and high streets to get involved in the 2015 competition.”

THAME’S ENTRY

The deadline for getting entries in is September 1, so Helen and her team are busy gathering evidence of all the great initiatives that Thame has instigated, such as the Shop Fronts improvement scheme, the success of our festivals – the Food Festival, the Arts & Literature festival, our Community Equipment Bank, the Cows information boards etc, evidence for which will include photographs, videos and other evidence of how the community and local authorities have worked with local organisations to make Thame’s High Street the vibrant and pleasant place that it is to shop and meet in.