Looking back
The Society continued its support for High Street businesses, being included in several of the High Street Shopping Guides AND the donation of a Hamper to the Christmas Shopping Guide competition. Inevitably there have been several closures in the last 12 months - 20/20 eyecare; The Land Office; Great Wall Chines Food; All Floors; Cote Brasserie; Notts Building Society; Santander; Barbarello; Fitness Space and TUI. Some new faces have appeared - Vinsanto; Atesh; Nonnos Pizza; Travelfourseasons; Golden Touch Barber and Brad & Dills . And in Southdown a new Turkish Barber and The Goode Kitchen.
In a return to our involvement with school arts we launched ‘TELL ME A STORY’ in autumn 2020 to senior schools. A writing competition with prizes of book tokens. Whilst attracting a lot of initial attention, Covid curtailed full involvement which led to a postponement. The 12 entrants were awarded book tokens for their efforts.
Before the first lockdown we staged a public meeting in Feb 2020 with Bim Afolami MP as guest speaker. Both projects generated editorial coverage in the Herts Ad and social media,
Looking forward
Our PR and promotional coverage to residents is governed by our activities within the Town from each of our Group leaders. We will reach out to residents via the social media networks and the Herts Advertiser with information and reports throughout the year ahead. The future of the High Street continues to be a contentious subject. Our ‘TELL ME A STORY’ competition is being relaunched in November. We hope to reintroduce our public meetings and appear at Town events like the Summer Carnival. The opening of the Eric Morecambe Centre will bring high profile events to the town. Rothamsted Enterprises are a fine example of business innovation, developing their assets like the Russell Building (below) into office space for rent and hot-desking.
We will continue to monitor business development in line with the policies of the Neighbourhood Plan and report findings of importance.
Ron Taylor