What could be done to support our businesses in Newark?

Times are tough for traders in Newark town centre — but what could be done to help them? We went along to find out…

Transcript

00:00I think doing more events in the town, maybe having some free parking, just to entice people

00:15into the shops really.

00:18To be fair, I think the council are doing quite a good job at the moment. They're promoting

00:24quite a lot of things going off in the marketplace. They've got a lot of events coming on. The

00:29whale, the beach and things like that. But everything is happening in the marketplace.

00:34We're on Cartergate and not a lot happens down here. The book fair, the book festival

00:40is fantastic because there is a book at the bottom of the street, so that is encouraging

00:43people to come down. Parking, free parking, a couple of hours free parking would be absolutely

00:49fantastic. The roads around Newark on a Friday afternoon, it's like a car park. It just takes

00:56one accident. So please, they will dual carriage it. But I know it's going to be hard and it's

01:01going to be in a mess while they're doing it. But I think it needs to be done because

01:05it does stop people coming into town. Yeah, you've just got to keep shopping local. Everyone's

01:11got to shop local and help the small independents. Otherwise, you can't moan if you haven't got

01:15a town if you don't come into town.

01:17Probably we've lowered business rates, especially for newer businesses. That's about it really.

01:25We have more people visiting the town, obviously, and that's going to happen with the Gatehouse

01:29project coming along with the Newark Master Plan, all those things happening. Every market

01:37town in the UK has been a victim of online shopping. We used to be hunter-gatherers,

01:44we now sit and click. We don't go into town, we click and we order our food, we order our

01:49goods so we don't need to visit town centres. And that's a problem. So yeah, people coming

01:56into the town, it's going to help. It really, really is. And it's what we need. It's what

02:00Newark needs. It's what every small town needs at the moment.

02:06I actually think that Newark as a town does a huge amount to support businesses locally

02:11inside the town with all the different things that they have going on in the marketplace.

02:15Newark makes a massive difference to us.

02:17Newark. Funding, obviously, but we need to get more shops open. A lot of the shops that

02:24are short need subsidising, get them open, get cheaper rates and things like that. Because

02:31it looks derelict when you see a lot of the shops shut. So definitely try and reopen the

02:35shops and get them subsidised. Not necessarily charity shops, but more like independent shops.

02:42So hopefully that would help get Newark, get more people in.

02:45There's another quiet thing which I'm going through myself at the moment, which is opening

02:50up empty spaces above shops. So ideally they need to be occupied, whether it's offices

02:56or residential and empty buildings that are never going to be shops or offices again,

03:01probably get conversion to turn them into residential and make it as simple as possible

03:07to get them change of use from commercial to residential. So yeah, something like that.

03:13Get more people into Newark.

03:15On-street car parking and the gentlemen on the level crossing at the castle station.

03:21So the barriers can go up a lot quicker and come down quicker like they should be doing.

03:24So the traffic flow is a lot, lot better than it is because nobody can seem to put the finger

03:30on the pulse and get it right.