Agenda item

Question

Under our 'Love Wokingham' brand, Wokingham Town Council has setup a virtual access point for many of our local businesses in the town, which directs people to the online presence for our local shops and businesses. We have our own website and regularly promote these businesses on social media. During the lockdown windows we have been putting out lists of restaurants who are delivering takeaway food. A sort of virtual High Street, which we have not been charging for.

I can see that Wokingham Borough Council have decided to start up a Virtual Christmas Market for small local traders on a Facebook feed, for which they are, rather shockingly charging £20-£50 to use. Considering that there is clearly no web site development and this looks like a very minimal service, I am wondering what value it offers.

What is Wokingham Borough Council actually investing in to promote and support ALL virtual businesses across the Borough?

Question

Under our 'Love Wokingham' brand, Wokingham Town Council has setup a virtual access point for many of our local businesses in the town, which directs people to the online presence for our local shops and businesses. We have our own website and regularly promote these businesses on social media. During the lockdown windows we have been putting out lists of restaurants who are delivering takeaway food. A sort of virtual High Street, which we have not been charging for.

I can see that Wokingham Borough Council have decided to start up a Virtual Christmas Market for small local traders on a Facebook feed, for which they are, rather shockingly charging £20-£50 to use. Considering that there is clearly no web site development and this looks like a very minimal service, I am wondering what value it offers.

What is Wokingham Borough Council actually investing in to promote and support all virtual businesses across the Borough?

Answer

Firstly, I would just like to point out that Love Wokingham is funded by both the Borough and Town Council and its promotion of local businesses has been agreed between the two authorities.  Therefore it is, itself one of the ways we are promoting and supporting businesses.

Just to give you a bit of background.  You asked the question what other things we are doing and then I am going to come back to the fee:

·         Approximately £19million of business rate relief have been provided;

• £20million of businesses grants have been provided, including discretionary;
• Website promotion of businesses providing virtual services;
• Provision of clear advice and guidance to help businesses operate in Covid-19 safe manner;
• Promotional signage to encourage safe local shopping;
• Social media promotion to encourage local shopping.

In terms of the virtual market fee, the Wokingham Virtual Christmas market was set up following the cancellation of an in-person ice rink and Christmas market style hut event due to Covid-19. To help support local businesses that would have been involved in the market we decided to take the market aspect virtually and online. Following some research it was decided to use a Facebook group style event in order to get the market up and running for the longest period.

In order to manage companies that were interested in becoming a stallholder we set up an application form in order to explain rules and responsibilities and also have a form of business identification; including insurance, hygiene certificates and website. This was to ensure consumer safety whilst we provided a platform for products to be sold on. A small admin fee applied to enter to the value of £20 for a small sole trader, self-employed or craft type business and a £50 fee for national or regional business with many shop premises. So far all of the 40-plus stallholders who have paid have entered at the £20 charge level.

The admin charge was introduced so that the page could be managed to allow only those stallholders entered to post, which prevents a build-up of hundreds of posts per day that you see in other market groups.

So in summary the stallholders receive:

• Support on any questions/queries they may have during the market time frame;
• Help to create an eye-catching post;
• Statistics on when to post, based on judging by the consumer habits for the previous week;
• Promotion of the market via WBC’s social media channels, of which our Facebook alone has an average monthly post reach of one million;
• A virtual market open for 38 days, if joined from the start, which is one of the longest running in the country

This all takes away all the behind the scenes leg-work a small business would normally have to do allowing them to focus solely on their products and the selling. Consumers and stallholders are primarily from within the Borough, not just Wokingham town centre or the larger towns, but we also welcome consumers from surrounding areas to help the local business grow and access a new consumer group other than those local to them.

The secondary aim of the market alongside supporting local business and creating some Christmas cheer in some tough times is also to extend the reach of those businesses by giving them a platform to interact with people and make connections that will hopefully extend and help their business going into 2021.

It should be noted that reaction to the Christmas Market has been extremely positive and we have had no complaints from the businesses that have so far signed up.

Supplementary Question

While that sounds great, and all this sort of stuff, I would be interested to know how much revenue this is generating and what value for money these businesses are getting?

Particularly at this time I am also curious to know what is happening in other towns?  I know what is happening in Wokingham.

Supplementary Answer

Obviously I have not got all that detail but I will try and get that dug out for you and get that back to you.