High Peak Borough Council
Hayfield Road
Chapel-en-le-Frith
High Peak
SK23 0QJ

Tel: 0845 129 77 77 or 01298 28400
Monday - Friday, 8am - 8pm
SMS Text: 07800 00 22 62
Minicom: 0845 129 48 76
Fax: 01663 751042

Press Releases

Shop Local campaign wins Market Towns award

Date: 15/07/2008

High Peak Borough Council's Shop Smart Shop Local campaign has won the Partnership and Strategic Working Category in the East Midlands Market Towns Awards 2008.

The award was presented at the East Midlands Rural Affairs Forum annual conference, in Melton Mowbray, on Wednesday, July 9.

The Shop Local Scheme created toolkits for independent shop keepers, including ideas on marketing, keeping up to date with change and information on support and how to participate, as well as a publicity campaign to raise awareness among local people, encouraging them to buy from their local shops.

The scheme won the award because:

it has created a low cost model for a scheme, which any town or council can duplicate;
it was accessible to all - by having a self read toolkit, information could be supplied to everyone;
the publicity in the local media, flyers and the passport scheme (which was a small element of the bigger project) enabled customers to be part of the project and ensure that they can better understand that it is their spending power that keeps shops here; and
it generated excellent media coverage - often full page features, with photographs, promoted not only great examples of local shops but also enabled residents to see destination shops in neighbouring towns and therefore didn't automatically head for a city, if they want to buy something which is not available in their local community.

Tony Kemp, Executive Councillor for Regeneration, said: "This is excellent news as High Peak Borough Council has worked hard to continue to support the retention of the High Street - including shop front grant schemes and free retailers workshops. We still have a good selection of independent retailers and we therefore wanted to build on our previous actions and support them to build their own business."

Copies of the toolkit pages and newspaper articles are available on our website at www.highpeak.gov.uk/shoplocal.

For copies of the pack, please phone 0845 129 7777.

Photo: High Peak Borough Council (HPBC) Economic Development Officer, Helen Pakpahan, collects the award certificate, on behalf of the Council, from Brian Montgomory, Chairman of East Midlands Rural Affairs Group, Market Towns sub-group.