Meeting Minutes 11th May 2009

Agenda
• Stronger Together Neighbourhoods
• Low Carbon Lymm
• Business retention (coming and going) and attracting new Traders
• Supermarket and why it’s not so super for Lymm!
• Fishmonger/Greengrocer – Traders working together as a collective/partnership
• Eagle Brow to be re-classified as a B road
(would then allow all sorts of changes, one way,
on street parking, traffic calming, market in centre) (long term pressure project)
• Any other business

Attendees.
Hazel Woolf & Linda Garrido – Banner & Co, Mike Evans – Laura’s Choice, Anthony Battersby – The Sweet Shop, Pam Hunter – Lymm Festival Committee/Parish Council, Hilary Hoyle – Arches, Phil & Sarah Sexton – Sextons Bakery, Mark & Margaret Harrison – Harrisons, David Skentlebery – Lymm Life, Richard Pierce – Low Carbon Lymm, Sady de Guz & Jacqui Taylor – Sweeney Todd, Jayne Nash & Louise Schofield – Fashionista, Ruth Whitworth – Stronger Together Neighbourhoods, WBC, Paul Littler – Littlers TV
Apologies. Pauline – Spread Eagle, Barbara Blundell – Bee Chic, Ann Johnstone – Lymm Parish Council, Graham Edgar – Edgar Art, Claire Hesketh & Charlotte Sumbland –The Cheshire Set.

•Stronger Together Neighbourhoods - a presentation by Ruth Whitworth from WBC.

A project from Warrington partnerships aims to get different sectors working together, eg. Public & private sectors, police, businesses & residents to see how they can link up together to tackle local issues. There will be an Area Board for South Warrington, & Businesses are invited to be on the board or be kept informed on projects. In June there will be a session to involve the Area Plan and traders can discuss their issues and see how they relate to issues in the other sectors. There will be a website and ageneral information sheet will be circulated.

•Low Carbon Lymm – a presentation by Richard Pearce.

This is a voluntary group set up to help reduce carbon emissions locally and save money on energy. Activities using local resources aimed at business, home and community groups will be encouraged and LCL would like businesses to help raise awareness, eg. Give out Action Packs. There would be free support for businesses who are interested in energy efficiency, saving costs and getting involved in recycling waste. The latter proposal was welcomed as waste is a problem and there is no help from the council. It was also felt that the project was good positive publicity for Lymm. Some information was distributed.

•Business Retention – How to attract new traders & keep existing ones.

The attendees from the new shop Fashionista were asked how they fared in finding a unit in Lymm. They were attracted to Lymm by the demographic, but found it more difficult to secure a unit here than elsewhere, as do other businesses they encountered who are actively seeking to open in Lymm. Many units were too expensive and the landlords do not seem to take the recession into consideration and some units need a lot of work and in general, there is little encouragement for new tenants. It was agreed that diversity rather than repetition is required to keep the village balanced, but landlords do not seem to have a policy on this. Conclusion – can we communicate with the landlords and influence them in any way, perhaps make them aware of the rents and rates paid everywhere else in the village.

•Spar supermarket – this is very poor on selection & pricing & is driving shoppers away from the village centre.

The monopolies commission would not allow 3 co-ops in the village, so it was opened as the Spar which although is reasonable for an edge of town store is unsuitable for a central location such as Lymm. People have already written to them complaining about their lack of basics, and customer numbers have dropped. It was discussed if it was worth having a meeting with the store manager to help them find a way forward, but if their company ethos is not flexible, perhaps we could try attracting someone else.
It was felt if Boots thought Lymm as a location is viable, it may be worth approaching the CEOs of better supermarket chains.

•Fishmonger/greengrocer – the customer survey showed this is the business that most local people would like to see opening in the village.
If none were forthcoming, would it be worth some of the other traders forming a co-operative to provide one? The feedback was that it was not viable and would cause too many problems. Also, if we were to succeed in attracting a decent supermarket, this may not even be necessary.

•Eagle Brow –
An idea that if Eagle Brow were re-classified as a B road it could bring about beneficial changes, eg. Allow parking down one side, introduce a one-way system and traffic calming, maybe a street market. This would be a long-term project but may be worth looking into to see if it is at all possible – in fact should it have been classified as a n A road in the first place? A way forward would be to check the road status first then see about long term changes.

•Any Other Business – how can the Traders move forward?
Initially by monitoring the progress of Pay & Display – as we know, instead of being installed on May 1st as publicised, when the machines were ordered it was found they took 6 weeks to arrive so there is a delay. When it does arrive, we need a publicity drive – perhaps a leaflet through every letterbox in Lymm and possible nearby areas, as well as articles in local publications.

Events such as the May Queen and Food Festival would also present opportunities for handing out leaflets and may succeed in targeting people from other areas. It would need to be made clear that short stay parking is free/cheap and that the object of the exercise is to free up parking spaces.

There have been reports of other small shopping centres suffering when charges were implemented for any length of stay, but this would not be the case in Lymm.
Lymm Life have offered to approach Spar and some of the landlords in Lymm to find out what their policies are and if they can find a way forward.
It was discussed if a directory listing local businesses could be published.

Update on new signage – the Gingernut presentations are to be shown to WBC for approval.

A list previewing Festival activities was handed round in case it would have an influence on business activity, eg. Opening hours during the festival.

The meeting closed at 8.00pm

Chairmans Note -
The meeting dragged on due to the incoherent ramblings of one attendee, this will not be allowed to happen again.
Also it was a little bit ambitious to have two guests, I will ensure if we have any guest speakers it will be limited to one.
Everybody present felt Lymm Traders was a useful association and should continue, I agree but have limited time, we are lucky to have Hilary doing such a stirling job but feel we could do with another body to liaise and follow up on important issues, can anybody help? , if so please give me a call 01925753669

Philip