Falmouth for Business Initiative Launched

Richard Gates & Richard Wilcox, Falmouth Town Team

Attracting more quality business ideas and start-ups to Falmouth, providing substantive on and offline business information and support while celebrating the existing diverse business community of Falmouth are all part of the new Falmouth for Business project being launched this month by the Falmouth Town Team (partnership between Falmouth BID and Falmouth Town Management).

The development of a comprehensive online business resource ‘Falmouth for Business’ on the official website for the town www.falmouth.co.uk, will be supplemented with offline, targeted, business to business information about Falmouth, collaborating with commercial agents, University College Falmouth and University of Exeter business teams to ensure a co-ordinated approach. 

A selection of the Celebrating Falmouth Businesses images can be viewed HERE

As Richard Wilcox, the Falmouth BID Manager explains:
“The project has several strands. Firstly I want Falmouth to do all it can to seek competitive advantage as well as promoting itself more effectively to a new business audience. We get numerous enquiries from potential investors which is terrific, but it highlights the need to provide much better, more substantive economic data and other relevant information on Falmouth to them. Such a professional can-do approach may just ensure that a business chooses to invest in Falmouth over another area of the country. The second strand is a proactive offshoot of the BID High Street Campaign which aims to celebrate the wide range of quality businesses that exist already in the town. To that end, BID has commissioned a Falmouth based photographer Hugh Hastings to capture that vibrant business spirit which we will then look to take on a Celebrating Falmouth Businesses exhibition roadshow locally and nationally so as to tell the Falmouth business story far and wide.”

Richard Gates, Falmouth Town Manager added:
“The Falmouth for Business initiative is another great example of the Falmouth Town Team (Falmouth Town Council working proactively with Falmouth BID) resource helping to support Falmouth and its businesses in a variety of ways. The new images of businesses that are being taken by Hugh Hastings look terrific and we have also designed new vacant unit wallpaper vinyl to showcase some of them. We work with numerous other organisations to help keep the vacant unit rate for Falmouth as low as possible – it currently stands at 5.8% making Falmouth the lowest in the South West (national average is 14%) – but if a site does become vacant in the town we look to improve its appearance as quickly and innovatively as possible.”

Falmouth-based photographer Hugh Hastings has lived in the town for 18 years and has always enjoyed the diversity of the local shops:
"Buying online or from vast supermarkets can only give you limited satisfaction, frankly there's so much more to life than saving a few quid. The shopping streets of Falmouth are one of the main reasons I chose to live here. The Falmouth shops and the people who work in them create a great atmosphere; they are the heart of the town in many ways. Working with the Falmouth BID team to promote the great things we have here has been a real pleasure and I look forward to developing the project further in the coming months."

Barney Peters, Partner at Scott Burridge Commercial added:
“As retail property agents it is great to see the proactive work that the Falmouth Town Team put into the town centre, the improvements, signage and attention they show greatly improves Falmouth’s town centre. We are pleased to work with them on a number of our client’s properties adding vibrancy and interest in empty units which await re-letting or the finalisation of new leases.”

Key points:

* The developing Falmouth for Business online section can be viewed via www.falmouth.co.uk
* Local exhibition of Celebrating Falmouth Businesses will run in The Poly, Falmouth from 21 Jan – 4 Feb 2013 New
* Celebrating Falmouth Businesses wallpaper vinyl installed at the ex Bon Marche store

Richard Wilcox, Falmouth BID Manager can be emailed via richardwilcox@falmouth.co.uk Richard Gates, Falmouth Town Manager can be emailed via richard@falmouth.co.uk Falmouth Town Team Office can be contacted via 01326 313353