WORKING FOR BUSINESS AND WITH THE COMMUNITY
INFORMATION SHEET
Brightlingsea Business
Association has always worked to endeavour to make Brightlingsea
a special place to live, work or enjoy as a visitor to the town.
It has always been our aim to encourage as many visitors as
possible to the town and encourage local people to use and
support the various shops and businesses in the town to try and
ensure a sustainable town centre beneficial to all.
We have always tried to work with the Town Council and other
organisations to ensure that the town and waterside is promoted
to best effect to help achieve the above aims.
Several years ago we started an Inward Investment /Regeneration
programme to try and raise the profile of Brightlingsea and over
the years have introduced several initiatives many in
partnership with other groups.
We started with the previous Town Council and in conjunction
with councillor Penny Excel formed a group made up of local
organisations to revamp the Town Guide. This was to try and
make it more visitor friendly and use as a marketing tool for
the town and instead of sending copies to each house in town
distributing them to tourism outlets in the wider region.
Our next joint venture was to hold an open day inviting people
to ‘Explore Brightlingsea for a day’, the following year the
theme was changed to ‘Brightlingsea Historical Experience’ both
these days and Continental Markets brought in new visitors
during the late Summer when no other events were on helping
maintain visitor numbers.
Also over the years we have tried to encourage coach operators
and group travel organisers to add Brightlingsea to their
itinerary and produced a ‘Group Travel Organisers’ leaflet
providing them with the information necessary for their
customers.
In more recent years we have tried to minimise the effect of the
downturn in the economy by placing empty shop details on our
website and furnishing the same details to TDC to encourage
people wanting to open a shop to consider Brightlingsea.
Together with the above we have also published several leaflets
including one covering ‘Relocation’ to help new businesses and
indeed people wanting to move to the town, as well as a Business
Directory, delivered to every house in Brightlingsea and
Thorrington. This initiative has paid dividends as the town has
all available shops now occupied.
Our initiatives have also been noticed by other towns who have
approached us requesting advice on setting up their own Business
Association and working with organisations in their area.
This is an ongoing process and we are hoping to introduce new
ways of promoting the town as well as exploring ideas which are
brought to us by businesses and other organisations in the
Brightlingsea area.
We realise that 2011 is likely to be a difficult year and are
encouraging people where possible to shop locally and support
the shopkeepers and other traders in the town.
To further our aims we have just produced a new leaflet ‘
Brightlingsea Map & Town & Waterside Shop Guide’. As well as a
map of the town it lists all the shops and places to eat in the
town centre and waterside, enabling visitors to see the variety
of shops and facilities available in Brightlingsea, thus
encouraging them to make a visit to the town and take
advantage of the amenities on offer. Contact details for all the
businesses on the leaflet are available on the Brightlingsea
Business Association website www.bbassoc.co.uk
