Support Local Businesses this Christmas

In light of the fast-approaching Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas Day, Love Wimbledon is urging businesses to encourage their employees to shop local this festive season and help to support small local independent businesses, charity shops and markets in Wimbledon Town Centre.

It is evident that online shopping has become increasingly popular in recent years, with buying behaviour changing rapidly too. Now more than ever, consumers are buying and returning more items online, with next-day delivery and free returns becoming the new standard. Often shoppers buy clothes online with the expectation of returning them, with recent figures suggesting that almost half of what consumers spend online, is returned.

What is often forgotten is the environmental impact of these few mouse clicks, which is becoming increasingly relevant given the current state of climate change. Despite its advantages, shopping online has a large impact on the environment. Shopping online often means receiving more packages within multiple deliveries, typically from delivery trucks or vans, with excess packaging used, including single-use plastic. Compare this to shopping locally, where consumers tend to use their one trip to their local town centre to combine tasks, e.g. purchase Christmas presents, grab some groceries and browse through a bookstore.

 

Photo Credits: First Mile

 

Shopping local, also means that the money spent stays local. In other words, rather than adding to the profits of multi-national chains, this money goes into the pockets of your neighbours in the community. By choosing to shop local, this money could be helping a family-run independent business, who’s owners are trying to fund a new bike for their child. Local businesses tend to be smaller, produce less waste than their enormous counterparts, and usually buy locally, live locally, and therefore create less air pollution and traffic.

Love Wimbledon is passionate about sustainability and as a business, we look wherever possible to reduce our environmental impact. Whether this is through managing a single-use plastic free market or using local businesses as suppliers, we ensure we have sustainability on our agenda within all our planning.

 

“By shopping locally at our independent businesses, charity shops and our market stalls, you are helping to keep the character and diversity of our town centre alive. Shopping online also means losing out on receiving great customer service and often, local businesses offer good value and outstanding, personal service all year round, bringing a warm, welcoming personality to a town centre whilst building that all-important sense of community and belonging”

– Helen Clark Bell, CEO of Love Wimbledon.

 

Go one step further this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, by resisting the urge to sell more and instead opting for recycling or reusing initiatives instead, which help reduce the demand for new products and their associated carbon footprint. Your business can be more efficient by considering sustainability issues. These can include your supply chain, reducing your overhead costs, interrogating your waste streams to improve your recycling rate and generally support the business community in the Wimbledon Town Centre.

Love Wimbledon has teamed up with award-winning, zero to landfill, recycling and waste company First Mile, to help businesses make terrific savings through waste collections and recycling. To find out more information on sustainable cost-saving schemes offered by Love Wimbledon, visit our website.

 

Photo Credits: First Mile

 

Shop smart and shop local this season, and urge others to do the same. Wimbledon is full of great independent stores including Fayre & Square, Fielders, Aubergine Art Gallery, Health Zone and Phokas Barbers, as well as charity stops, including the National Institute for African Studies charity shop,  Cancer Research and Oxfam, and is home to our highly successful Christmas Markets. Opt against contributing to overproduction and the environmental impact of this, by going green this Black Friday and supporting our independent businesses on Small Business Saturday, Saturday 7th December.

 

Join our vision to ensure a brighter future for Wimbledon and help to strengthen our town centre businesses.

Sustainable Merton’s Community Fridge

Sustainable Merton, Merton’s leading environmental charity, is bringing the first Community Fridge to the borough.

This meaningful project offers an exciting opportunity to stop edible surplus food from going to waste, and instead make this available to those who are struggling to afford to eat. The Community Fridge is essentially just a big fridge, located in an accessible, friendly space, where individuals and businesses can donate fresh edible food and members of the community can take what they want or need.

Sustainable Merton’s Community Fridge project has been selected to participate in the Big Give Christmas Challenge 2019, the U.K.’s largest match funding campaign running from 3rd – 10th December 2019.

This means that the first £2000 in donations made via theBigGive.org.uk to the Community Fridge project during this week, will be matched and thus have twice the impact.

The aim is to raise a minimum of £10,000, which will contribute to the set up, running, maintenance and management of Merton’s first Community Fridge.

The need for food assistance in Merton is rising. Between 2015 – 2017, the number of residents accessing local food banks increased by 33%. At the same time, huge amounts of good food is going to waste, filling up overflowing landfill sites and producing greenhouse gases. Many local businesses and residents would be willing to donate fresh food if they had the opportunity, and a Community Fridge in Merton will provide this essential link that does not exist in the borough at present.

Sustainable Merton’s Community Fridge will be a valuable contribution to the community, contributing to reductions in both greenhouse gas emissions and food poverty. With the support from individuals and businesses, we can make a real difference to the lives of local people and protect our environment by keeping good food out of the bin and into the hands of those who need it most.

To find out more about the Community Fridge initiative, visit the following link.

Businesses Asking the Questions

Ahead of the General Election, Labour and Conservative politicians wanted to engage with businesses and provide a platform for local businesses to get their voices heard. We were pleased to be able to provide this opportunity for local businesses to meet the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John McDonnell, and the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid.

 

In an effort to get the business voices of Wimbledon heard, Rt Hon Sajid Javid recently visited the town, providing a platform for local businesses to question the current Chancellor of the Exchequer. Topics covered included infrastructure projects, employment and business tax. Naturally, mention of Brexit was also raised on several occasions. A range of businesses attended from retail to accountancy, the built environment to tech, enabling a discussion of the challenges that face different businesses in the area, both now and in the future.

In order to ensure a bright future for Wimbledon, Love Wimbledon lobby on a range of policies that could influence Wimbledon Town Centre, including Crossrail2 and Business Rates. This gave us the opportunity to wave the Wimbledon flag and that of our business community.

With the help of Love Wimbledon, Labour politician and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John McDonnell, also met with Wimbledon businesses.

A variety of small to medium businesses attended from different sectors and discussed issues around the broadband strategy, the future for the construction industry, employment issues, access to finance and land value tax to replace business rates.

Love Wimbledon BID is very keen to help our businesses to have their voice heard at strategic forums on the key issues affecting them, whilst also keeping Wimbledon town centre highlighted as a strong and attractive business base.

 

Welcome New Board Members

Angela Attah CIPD Christopher Kitley Elys

 

We would like to extend a warm welcome to Angela Attah and Christopher Kitley, new members of the Love Wimbledon Board.

Angela is Director of Legal and Governance at CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development. Through their expertise and research, CIPD drive positive change for business members in Wimbledon.

Christopher is General Manager at Elys, an iconic department store located in the heart of Wimbledon for over 140 years.  Part of the Morleys Stores umbrella, Elys of Wimbledon has remained competitive by taking a customer-centric approach to retail by connecting and responding to demand from the community.

The Love Wimbledon Board is made up of representatives of the Wimbledon Town Centre business community each bringing their own expertise whilst also representing our BID businesses with regards to sector, size and location within the town.

 

Find out more about the Love Wimbledon Board

Love Wimbledon Plant Over 250 New Trees

Probably the longest native woodland hedge in Wimbledon!

 

Love Wimbledon always strives to reduce it’s impact on the environment. Thus ahead of National Tree Week and in conjunction with the Woodland Trust’s The Big Climate Fightback, Love Wimbledon has pledged to help fight the climate emergency, by planting over 250 new saplings in Hartfield Road.

As well as being one of the best ways to fight a changing climate, planting trees can help to improve air quality and protect biodiversity in urban areas. Younger trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, at a rate of nearly 6kgs per tree.

This means that the new hedge planted by Love Wimbledon will absorb approximately 1,500kgs of CO2 and have a significant impact upon air pollution in Wimbledon. This is especially significant given that the majority of buses in Wimbledon Town Centre, pass through Hartfield Road, in addition to cars, lorries, taxi’s and vans.

Love Wimbledon’s double-row hedge features a variety of species including Rowan, Hazel, Cherry, Elder and Crab Apple trees.

 

These saplings have been carefully selected to offer beautiful blossoms, bright berries and stunning autumn displays, whilst also acting as a connection for existing woodland so that wildlife stay on the move.

 

Trees are essential for people, wildlife and the environment. They absorb carbon, fight flooding, reduce pollution, nurture wildlife and make landscapes more resilient. But given the alarming rate of global warming on our planet, reducing our carbon emissions will never be enough.

 

‘It is vital that we grow a UK-wide patchwork of trees and woods – not just by planting, but also through natural regeneration. The woods, hedges and green spaces we create buffer existing habitats, tackle climate change and reverse wildlife decline – all at the same time’.

– The Woodland Trust

 

This comes as part of the ‘Free Trees for Schools and Communities’ programme run by the Woodland Trust, and funded by Sainsburys, People’s Postcode Lottery, Yorkshire Tea, Joules and Selfridges.

For more information on what Love Wimbledon are doing to improve air quality in Wimbledon Town Centre, including the Adopt A Tree campaign, visit our air quality page.

Ellisons Receive Best Estate Agent Award

Ellisons Estate Agents

 

One of Wimbledon’s leading estate agents, Ellisons, has recently been identified as a top estate agent in the country and gained recognition as winner of the Best Estate Agent Guide 2020.

Ellisons Estate Agents are an independent estate agents, with over 27 years’ local knowledge and expertise in selling property in Wimbledon and the surrounding areas. Love Wimbledon is very proud to have a nationally recognised and award-winning estate agents located in our town centre.

 

“These awards follow a rigorous and independent assessment and we are thrilled to have been recognised as among the best in the country”.

– Sean Purtill, owner of Ellisons Estate Agents

 

Ellisons were surveyed against a total of 15,000 estate agents in the country, in one of the biggest assessments of any industry. Criteria included property marketing, results and customer service, with over 3 billion data points and 20,000 mystery shops being analysed. As a result, Ellisons now features in the Best Estate Agent Guide and has been listed in the top 3% of estate agents in the country.

For further details on how Ellisons Estate Agents can help you sell or let a property, visit their website.

Enhance Your Google Profile with 360° Images

Google My Business 360 images

 

Love Wimbledon are now offering a FREE service to all BID members, providing 360° images of your business venue, for use on your Google My Business page.

Since its launch in September 2018, 47 businesses, including Roxie Steak, The Prince of Wales and The Body Shop, have made use of this fantastic service. At present, business images provided by Love Wimbledon on Google, have received over 3.7 million views – a figure which only continues to grow with time.

Images truly do speak louder than words, and the impressive digital reach of these 360-degree views have allowed BID businesses to showcase all the details of their stores that customers love, whilst generating greater interest and increasing the number of potential customers clicking on their Google listing.

 

“The team at Love Wimbledon are a huge asset to Wimbledon and its businesses! I have had the pleasure working with them for the past few years and they consistently come up with new ideas to help the local economy. Recently they have offered local businesses 360 photography for their venues free of charge and really delivered.”

– Mike Byrne, Owner – Suburban Bar & Lounge

 

So far Love Wimbledon has uploaded close to 250 of these high-quality 360-degree pictures to Google My Business listings which has had over half a million views – and counting. This free-to-use service is a great way for your business to make a good first impression to potential customers.

To find out more about how these images could offer a brilliant opportunity for your business, get in touch.

 

Google 360 The Body Shop