Minutes:
The Committee received a Town Team update from Aaron Weeks, these included:
Linkage Update
Caldicot Town Team recently called a meeting between Monmouthshire County Council, London & Cambridge and Waitrose, when it became clear that the project had no intentions of moving to the next stage of building works in January, which we were assured in the months before Christmas. It became evident that during the meeting, figures from each side were considerably different, varying from £30+K overspend to £100+K overspend. During the meeting Waitrose and London & Cambridge both agreed to cover the cost of the resurfacing works of the Waitrose car park, which would reduce the cost. L&C made it clear they were investing in the project, and committed but would not put any further income into the project. Waitrose also stated they were committed, but would not put any further income into the project. MCC also stated they were committed.
The meeting finished with all parties agreeing to go away and come back within a week with;
· The exact costings and overspend of the project
· Whether it was viable for Waitrose to raise any further income for the project.
· Whether there was any other funding options that were able to be explored, such as vvp, match-funding etc.
· Costings have come back, which shows the overspend to be in or around £90K. Waitrose are unable to raise any further income, but have agreed to cover half of the costs of the resurfacing project.
An update will follow.
Markets Project
Following on from our pilot project in 2015, Caldicot Town Team are running a further 10 markets in 2016 and submitted a business case to the last program board meeting, which was recommended to be approved. This included an extensive marketing campaign to promote Caldicot market and our specialised markets. It also includes purchasing market stalls, which are branded with the Caldicot town team logo, and will help reduce costs and time substantially when carrying out markets. These will also be available for hire from just £4 a day.
Our first Market this year was a welsh market in aid of Eisteddfod, during the event we raised £250 for the Eisteddfod, which includes pitch fees. We also raised around £50 from selling raffle tickets to win the car.
Caldicot Goes Pop!
We are currently working on a project to open a pop up shop within the town centre (unit next door to Morgan travel) Businesses will be able to rent the shop from us at a cost of £10 a day or £50 a week, up to a maximum of two weeks. This will give them a chance to test –trade within the town, without the risk of high overheads or lengthy leases. If, after this time the business wants to stay for longer, we have already put agreements in place to offer 3,6,9 or 12 month tenancies for other empty units within the town.
The aim is to provide vibrancy and vitality within the town centre, whilst providing shoppers with an extra reason to revisit the town, as businesses will be changing regularly. Committee Groups will also be able to utilise the shop unit, for free to enable them to put on a show or activity as a one off within the town. The unit and project will be up and running by the middle of May (although official opening is likely to be early June, due to bookings already in place.) We have been really lucky to be able to take the lease for a period of 12 months totally rent free. With our eligible for rate discounts as well means the entire project is costing less than £5,000. The designs for the project were drawn up by a year 10 art student from Caldicot school, and Webber Design will be making all of our marketing and design material free of charge, which will be unveiled within the next couple of weeks.
Wi-Fi
Since the project was shelved last year due to lack of commitment by Spectrum Internet we have now found another provider Solvings UK who have found a much cheaper alternative to provide free Wi-Fi to Caldicot town centre. Connections will be made within the CCTV columns, which will emit the Wi-Fi signal, and will cover the whole town centre, without the need for installing cabling along buildings, hard access points within business premises etc. The project is currently awaiting approval from Roger Joy and Andrew Mason at MCC, and installation should take less than a couple of weeks after this has be ok’d.
Urban Design Project
The final report has been produced by Roberts Limbrick, which has been circulated to Town Council and stakeholders. Unfortunately our deadline has slipped to provide an outline report into the next phase, due to the large number of projects we are currently heavily involved in, but work has been taking place behind the scenes with the new landlords in the town, and speaking to key stakeholders about the project in more detail.