Dear Businesses
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement on Saturday 1st November confirming a 2nd nationwide lockdown, we are truly sorry to hear that many of our local, non-essential businesses are again required to close on Thursday 5th November, with some having to close earlier due to Tier 3 restrictions. Our thoughts are with you and your families during this incredibly difficult time.
We know some of you are able to remain open as you offer Essential retail services. We know many have adapted your businesses model during this pandemic to help you to remain trading in a different way to normal – this is true testament to the positivity of our business community. Please message us / get in touch asap if you are staying open or can still trade in some way – we are promoting as many businesses as we can via the Come to Colne Social media pages and creating a NEW online ‘Come To Colne – Shop our High Street’ feature on www.cometocolne.com. This is to show Colne is still open for business and our customers can support your local businesses online, by driving everyone to a central online ‘high Street’. Get in touch if you already have a website with an online shop facility (or if you offer telephone, facebook sales etc ) where customers can buy online whilst you are closed, to be included in this campaign. We can’t possibly get around everyone- so you need to communicate with us direct to confirm your terms and online trading details with us . e:mail manager@colnebid.co.uk
Current Guidelines and Financial Support
Please see below links to the most up to date Government guidelines on which essential retailers can open and any financial support which you may find helpful:
- The current financial support packages available to businesses from the Government.
- The new national restrictions & list of essential retailer from 5th November.
Frustratingly, Government haven’t released guidance or details of the financial support package available to businesses affected from Tier 3 closures yet (nearly 3 weeks in!). Nor have we any indication of financial support for businesses affected by lockdown 2 closures. As soon as we know, we will update you on how you will claim any grant payments through Pendle Borough Council.
We regularly update the Colne BID facebook page with COVID related business updates, so please keep checking that daily.
Getting you Online, Click & Collect hub & offering local Delivery solutions.
We are looking at providing retail based businesses initially with a local ‘Click and Collect’ hub facility that your business can offer to your online customers as well as a low cost, local delivery service (subsidised by Colne BID) for 4 weeks during lockdown. We are frantically working up plans to help you sell online if this is something you don’t do already. We have a financial support package available to any of our Colne BID businesses that want to set up an online shop in the next few weeks via Shopify (using a basic package). This package includes one-to-one training & support to set your shop up, from a digital marketing specialist. This can be done in just a few days. GET IN TOUCH ASAP if you want to hear more and take advantage of this great opportunity to get your business selling online as well as your physical shop (which we still prefer as we want to keep Colne High Street alive). This is on a first come, first served basis – so register your interest quick.
Colne folk are resilient and our customers have a strong #shoplocal ethic and want to shop local and support you. We feel confident that Colne will again come together and bounce back as soon as we are able to fully re-open which we hope to be on 3rd December. We are here to help in any way we can during lockdown, so please continue to feed any thoughts or ideas back to us on how we can support you and ways we can spend the Colne BID levy to support a range of different businesses not just retail.
Christmas ‘Shop Local’ Marketing
Colne BID had ambitious ‘Shop Local’ marketing plans in place; a 20,000k leaflet drop, a Christmas Magazine (20k copies), advert in Northern Life magazine, Shop local shoppers bags & giveaways, Christmas window displays, A Facebook live chat with Santa, competitions & giveaways planned for November and December to support Colne Businesses in the run up to Christmas. We now have to cancel and amend some of our plans again as it has changed several times over recent weeks. Some of it can continue. But we are frantically working behind the scenes to do what ever we can with the limited staffing, a lockdown and the ever changing nature of a pandemic we are all faced with.
We have a part-time BID manager and our BID Board Directors are local business who are all volunteers and have businesses to run. We are all pulling together to make things happen. If anyone would like to offer an extra pair of hands, get involved in our BID Board working groups and decision making – we’d love to hear from you!
Please don’t hesitate to contact me : Lisa Durkin, Colne BID Manager if you have any questions and either myself or one of our directors will do our best to answer them.
Contact details:
E: manager@colneBid.co.uk
Message us on: Facebook or Instagram @Come To Colne @ColneBID
#StaySafe
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