BID Initiatives

Business Visual Improvement Fund 2022

The Stoke-on-Trent City Centre Business Improvement District (BID) has set aside £15,000 for this financial year to contribute towards a selection of visual business project ideas that will have a positive impact in the BID area. Awards in the amount of £300* (maximum) will be given to selected businesses. *Larger amounts may be considered if there is a compelling case.

All projects submitted must align with at least 3 of the BID’s strategic aims and will be assessed against these aims when the applications for funding are awarded. Applications will only be accepted from those adding visual improvement and additionality to their existing businesses. The applicant must present the ‘extension / additionality to their existing project’ within their application. 

Stoke-on-Trent City Centre BID’s Strategic Aims: 

Increase footfall within the BID area 

Raise awareness of the City Centre’s unique offerings 

Enhance and improve the experience of those visiting the BID area

Deliver a strong marketing offer to highlight Stoke-on-Trent City Centre’s hidden gems 

Increase the safety of those visiting the BID area 

Provide a cleaner and greener environment to attract visitors 

Reduce anti-social behaviour and crime within the BID area

Enhance and improve the streetscape of the BID area

Applicants’ proposals must support and enhance the project areas from within the BID’s business plan. Businesses applying can be for-profit or not-for-profit, but must be able to identify the positive visual impact of their plan. Applications can be made to the Stoke-on-Trent City Centre “BUSINESS VISUAL IMPROVEMENT” Fund once a year. A panel will meet to assess and award accordingly.

Who can apply? 

Any City Centre businesses within the BID Levy Area, who have a genuine desire to improve their business frontage.

Examples of requests for funds would include (but not be limited to):

New or improved shop signage

Painting - building, frames, doors, etc.

Boarding out or glass replacement of upstairs windows

Hanging Baskets

Deep cleaning (outside)

Window wraps for closed businesses

To be eligible for the Stoke-on-Trent City Centre “BUSINESS VISUAL IMPROVEMENT” Fund, you must:

Be providing a idea aimed at improving and enhancing Stoke-on-Trent City Centre

Be based in England 

Be a registered organisation, community group, association, or an individual

Ensure your idea is for the benefit of the city centre 

Be able to match fund larger projects financially or in kind (example: The BID will provide the paint, the business does the work).

Funding criteria: Things to consider as an applicant

The BID receives a high proportion of requests for funding; therefore, your application needs to be clear, compelling and provide a concise rationale as to why it will support the BODY's primary objectives for the city centre. 

Do you have an idea or project that intends to drive footfall and increase footfall in Stoke on-Trent City Centre? 

Do you have a city centre business project that requires grant funding to help deliver it?

Does your project match the aspiration of the BID’s business plans?

Do you have an action plan for your project with timeline and metrics? 

Is your application to provide an extension / additionality to an existing business?

How is the rest of the project being funded (if applicable)?

Payments will be made retrospectively once work has been completed

Please also note, the BID must be able to show Return on Investment to its levy payers.  Therefore, any publicity about the activity would need to include suitable coverage about the BID’s input. All successful applications would be publicised by the BID through platforms such as press releases, website coverage, social media, and other avenues, therefore those applying must acknowledge this in advance. To view the Stoke-on-Trent City Centre BID Business Plan and the BID area, visit www.stokeontrentcitycentre.co.uk and click the relevant link at the top of the page

Key Dates:

20/04/2022 Applications Open

30/04/2022 Applications Assessed

06/05/2022 Offers made to Successful Applications

10/05/2022 Dates agreed for Completion of Work

HOW TO APPLY:

Simply download our application form and return to hello@stokeontrendbid.co.uk, or fill out the copy you receive from our ambassadors and return back to us at The BID.

The BID is resuming its quarterly meetings for levy-payers where each meeting’s agenda has a different focus such as a marketing workshop, visual merchandising training, or hearing from MPs or event managers, whereby attendees can learn something new and apply it to their own working practises.

The meetings are a platform for the BID to share updates and plans for upcoming events, with the option for levy payers to provide feedback so that the BID can deliver a tailored programme of business support, suitable for each business, with round-table discussions also often taking place so that businesses can learn from others, get to know their City Centre colleagues and strengthen the business community.

All levy payers are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Stoke-on-Trent City Centre BID has been working alongside the local authority and businesses to facilitate a recovery plan for the City Centre and to ensure a good level of support for our levy payers. To this end, we've commissioned a number of measures to help shoppers and visitors feel safe and confident, whilst ensuring adherence to social distancing guidelines, plus a number of business support initiatives. These include:

• Securing free outdoor licensing for cafés and venues

• 570 barriers for queueing systems in key City Centre locations, with ‘Welcome back’ messaging

• Footprint markings to denote safe queuing distances in 465 locations

• Large floor stencils to remind people to stay safe

• 200 lamp post signs to encourage social distancing

• Hosting socially distanced street-safe entertainment

• Free tailored business mentoring to help businesses adapt to ‘the new normal’ delivered by Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce and Stoke-on-Trent City Centre BID

• Developing and issuing a ‘Reopening the City Centre’ guide for businesses

• Supporting all City Centre businesses through our Street Ambassadors and via hundreds of informative email bulletins

• Commissioning a series of 15 films to spotlight the special measures put in place in response to COVID-19 by some of our retail and leisure businesses to help visitors feel safe and #COVIDConfident

To navigate these difficult times and visualise a successful future for our City Centre, conveying the Stoke-on-Trent City Centre BID's vision and its all-important priorities has never been so important. 

In order to do this, we have teamed up with award-winning journalist Jenny Amphlett, a local writer that loves and champions her city. Together, we're producing 'the BID voice'; a constructive and positive narrative for our City Centre. Every month, we release a new article, each focussing on something new and exciting.

The BID Voice is distributed to the local press and to the ‘movers and shakers’ of the city for circulation.

Read the articles that have been released so far here.

The Stoke-on-Trent City Centre Business Improvement District (BID) has set aside £15,000 per funding stream to contribute towards a selection of creative and innovative events and new project ideas that will have a positive impact in the BID area. Applicants’ proposals must support and enhance one of the project areas from within the BID’s business plan. 

• Increase footfall within the BID area 

• Raise awareness of the City Centre’s unique offerings 

• Enhance and improve the experience of those visiting the BID area

• Deliver a strong marketing offer to highlight Stoke-on-Trent City Centre’s hidden gems 

• Increase the safety of those visiting the BID area 

• Provide a cleaner and greener environment to attract visitors 

• Reduce anti-social behaviour and crime within the BID area

• Enhance and improve the streetscape of the BID area

Individuals, Community groups, associations and organisations who have a good idea for a City Centre project or event but need a small amount of revenue funding to develop, test and launch their activity can apply.

A panel, made up from Board and Advisory Group members, will discuss each application and make a decision as to which applications have been successful. More information can be found here.

A selection of Stoke-on-Trent’s talented artists have been using a number of City Centre doors as canvasses to showcase their distinctive and eye-catching artwork as part of the BID's ‘Our Front Door’ project.

The project came to fruition following weeks of workshops hosted by We Are Culla, various artists and young creatives from the YMCA, where themes and designs for the doors were explored, ensuring a joined-up community approach to the artwork.

Doors were transformed from their current graffiti-ridden states, to magnificent works of art, brightening up the City Centre and bringing vibrancy to the area. The project also provides the platform for the amazing talent that Stoke-on-Trent is home to, to receive the attention and admiration it so deserves.

Previous years have seen the development and delivery of 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.

We plan to build on this success for 2021, whilst actively sourcing a wide variety of discounts and deals to maximise enjoyment within the City Centre for our local student population.

A team of three 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 Senior Street Ambassador, Richard Wood 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

We also launched a City Centre website in 2019, designed to provide visitors and residents alike with information on upcoming events, local attractions, things to do and places to stay, eat and shop.

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 a Stoke-on-Trent City Centre Business Directory; 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 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.

As the reduction of single-use plastic becomes a more prevalent cause than ever, we implemented the Refill scheme within the City Centre, enlisting over 50 venues including cafés, bars, restaurants, museums and other businesses to sign up to the free Refill app and put a sticker in their window alerting passers-by to the fact they’re welcome to fill up their bottle for free.