BID Initiatives

---

Our award-winning Operation Sparkle initiative aims to encourage a clean, tidy trading environment for our local businesses and an inviting City Centre for our visitors to enjoy. The BID introduced Operation Sparkle in March 2021 with the aim to ensure the City Centre maintains a quality enviroment that will attract shoppers and visitors whilst increasing footfall. 

The BID reached new areas of improvement for 2024 and is working with the local authority, other key partners, and City Centre businesses to help clean up the trading environment through activities like jet washing, weeding, litter picking, graffiti removal and much more. Each year, we also undertake a 'Big Spring Clean', working with volunteers, stakeholders and the public to action litter picking, grafitti removal and much more to improve the environment. 

As part of 2024's Operation Sparkle, we worked with Staffordshire artist and muralist Rob Fenton on the support and funding of ArtBox, an innovative mini-mural trail utilising bins and electric boxes in the city centre, each with its own quirky design by local artists in conjunction with charities and organisations.
 

---

Every few months, the BID hosts meetings for Levy Payer businesses to connect, learn about BID actions and activities and get involved. To stay up to date with when these Levy Payer meetings take place, please get in touch with projects@stokeontrentbid.co.uk.
 

---

Each year, we produce and deliver 4,000 magazines to local university students at Welcome Fairs, to promote the City Centre's entertainment offering to both newcomers to the city, and to residents.
 

---

A team of Street Ambassadors are employed by the BID to give local businesses a voice and make sure visitors to the city have the best possible experience during their stay.

The team is made up of April Jackson as the Ambassadorial Services Manager, Richard Wood, Alexander Dick and Qamar Sohail.

The trio take to the streets six days a week and are the BID’s eyes and ears, recording issues affecting organisations within the BID area, ensuring that the city operates effectively for both businesses and their customers. 

The uniformed team are also on hand to provide a warm welcome and helpful information for people visiting the City Centre.

One of our key areas of focus is managing a social media presence to firstly inform followers of events and updates within the City Centre, and also to support the marketing for various BID initiatives. To stay updated, please follow our social media channels:

• Facebook: @stokeontrentcitycentrebid

• Twitter: @stokeontrentbid

• Instagram: @stokeontrentbid
 

The website is the first port of call for anyone who wishes to learn more about the entertainment offering within the City Centre and delivers a platform for finding out about the latest news and updates from the BID as we progress through our five-year strategy to make the City Centre more welcoming, vibrant and influential through various projects including those listed on this page.

It also provides added visibility to local restaurants, shops and venues to help support the business community and allows users to filter content based on a specific interest, type of cuisines, type of event, enabling visitors to create a tailor-made itinerary. 

We launched our Stoke-on-Trent City Centre Business Directory back in 2019; an online resource that lists all the services available in the City Centre, neatly categorised for your ease of use, alongside a handy 'search by keyword' function, to make it extra user-friendly.

This tool, which can be found on the BID website, will help the business community support one another.

Need a solicitor or accountant? Want to reward your staff or partake in some team building? How about ideas of where to take your clients to lunch and dinner? Perhaps you need an appointment with a doctor, an optician, a dentist or a haircut or beauty treatment, or even to mend car troubles? Have a work function or conference and are looking for some event spaces and/or catering? The City Centre Directory every scenario covered!

---

We like to connect with local businesses face-to-face, and our Street Ambassadors conduct weekly visits to all 436 businesses but we also issue monthly BID Business Bulletins to all BID members and associated parties to keep them up to date with our activities, as well as informative emails detailing support available and the latest restrictions throughout the COVID pandemic.

We are continuously working alongside Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce to support local independent retailers with free business mentoring support.

The Chamber has delivered a mentoring programme for over ten years and it provides business with non-judgmental and tailored guidance via over 100 mentors, all of whom have extensive skills and knowledge and a desire to give something back to the business community. It is less of a formalised professional relationship and more of a partnership.

Mentoring can be used at all stages of a business life cycle, from business start-up through to exit strategy, and provides businesses with support for a range of business disciplines, including: Sales and marketing; Leadership and management; Social media; Funding and finance; and Business development and growth.

In addition, it can be used to help businesses in gearing up to operate in 'the new normal, addressing topics such as: Managing furloughed workers against business capacity; Supporting the health and wellbeing of the team; Developing an online presence for your business; Creating a marketing plan to support business revival; Effective use of health and safety due to new restrictions; Developing a cashflow forecast’ and more.

If you are a City Centre business that feels they would benefit from free business mentoring, please register your interest by emailing hello@stokeontrentbid.co.uk.

---

The BID have funded and created with MiConex the Stoke-on-Trent City Centre Gift Card. A little card set to pack a huge punch to our local business economy, supporting independent businesses and big name brands on our doorstep. Read more + sign your business up here.