Colchester Borough Council: Fostering Colchester's economic recovery from COVID-19

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was felt across the national and local economies, particularly on key sectors such as hospitality, retail and construction, ensuring the survival and recovery of local businesses was key to supporting the wider long-term plans of the area. The council also wanted to sustain confidence in Colchester as a place to invest and provide employment opportunities and promote the place as a good quality of life for the people who live, work, study and visit Colchester. Therefore, developing a skills pipeline in the local population and retaining skilled workers was a key challenge for the council to address as it developed its recovery plans.

The challenge continues with rising costs due to supply chain shortages, skills shortages, inflation and energy costs all affecting economic recovery from COVID-19. The challenge is particularly acute in some of Colchester's most important sectors: tourism, hospitality, leisure and retail. 

The council recognized that maintaining consumer confidence would be key to their recovery as without spend there is no economy. Therefore, to sustain confidence, the council undertook a three-pronged approach to facilitate the recovery from the pandemic to facilitate support for businesses whilst maintaining spend.

• Support for businesses: It was recognized that a pragmatic approach would be needed to support businesses and therefore the council provided a holistic support package to local businesses. This included the distribution of £65m in government COVID-19 support grants to 12,401 businesses at speed and funding business advice, support and guidance through a local business support agency COLBEA.  Spring 2022 saw the opportunity to take both tactical and strategic approaches to supporting local businesses via the Government's Covid Support Grants.  In view of the significant rise in costs, the Colchester Business Cost Reduction Programme has been introduced which is a bespoke approach to identifying current use/spend and highlighting opportunities for improving services and reducing costs.  In addition, a strategic grant was given to COLBEA to ensure that the service itself remains sustainable given that demand for business support is likely to rise in the face of these challenges.​
• Undertaking projects to support consumer demand: The council worked in partnership with Our Colchester BID and other Essex Councils to offer independent retailers’ access to an online platform, Clickit Local which offers Amazon-style shopping from local retailers.  Much learning was accumulated from this pilot project by the partnership as well as the retailers and the programme ceased in April 2022.  One of the main learning points was how this project had supported home-based start-ups without a route to market, so the project helped them to understand distribution and demand for their products which is now informing future business plans.
• To support retailer recovery, the council also invested in short term initiatives to increase footfall such as funding improvement projects by installing Parklets on the High Street in Autumn 2021 to increase footfall and encourage longer dwell time. They also carried out marketing campaigns by installing branded street archways in June 2022 whilst simultaneously undertaking the regeneration of two town squares.  In addition, CBC has worked with the BID to contribute to a Leisure Recovery Plan which is being implemented currently.
• Sustaining strategic investment programmes: A number of key projects were launched during this period which offered both short term initiatives to boost recovery as well as long term initiatives. These include Northern Gateway, a £175m leisure and residential destination development as well as the £11 million expansion and renovation of Mercury Theatre.  A key part of the Northern Gateway development is the new Sports Park which opened in Spring 2021 and is hosting events and gaining in popularity.  The Mercury Theatre goes from strength to strength as it maximises usage of its spaces with a variety of community and private events as well as performance.  There has been record demand for the 2022 Panto as pre-sales of tickets have been unprecedented, so in that respect The Mercury are meeting the challenge of the rise in the cost of living by enabling local families to spread the cost over the year.
• Furthermore, to boost digital connectivity particularly amidst the increasing transition to hybrid and remote working, £3.45m Ultrafast gigabit broadband digital infrastructure was installed.  The Town Deal is part-funding a new grow-on centre for creative and digital businesses which will be part of the new AIXR Centre for Immersive Innovation.  The purpose of this global centre for the Metaverse will be to educate the world about extended reality (XR) and what it can do for business.  It will form AIXR's base of international operations and will be associated with global tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Oculus, hp and Nvidia.  It's anticipated that the new centre will open in 2025 and will be a key part of positioning the new city of Colchester as a tech hub.
• As well as these initiatives the council successfully secured a £19.2m Town Deal Government grant which is enabling the council to continue to develop a pipeline of projects, which are just commencing, to facilitate the longer-term regeneration plans. 

Sustaining support for strategic investment projects has supported the construction sector and supply chain. It has also helped diversify the area’s offer to consumers and residents by creating new destinations and offerings for people in and around Colchester in the culture and leisure space thereby increasing footfall.

It has also shown leadership and demonstrated confidence in the medium to longer term through the successful town deal grant from government. The investment in digital infrastructure also allows the place to compete in terms of attracting new business investment and a skilled population particularly amidst the transition to remote working and hybrid working patterns brought on by the pandemic. This puts Colchester on the best footing to survive and recover and enables the place to compete effectively. Despite a raft of additional cost, supply chain and staffing challenges, as well as recovery from the Pandemic, collective confidence remains strong as the economy emerges.

Collaborations and partnerships have strengthened and there is a renewed interest in working together. Pipeline projects are coming forward and new aspirations are feeding a future pipeline. This is enabling a future focus for place and people. There is significant risk to the leisure, tourism and hospitality sectors and there may well be business losses but generally Colchester and its businesses are on the best footing to survive and recover and to make the most of whatever opportunities arise from Colchester's new status as a city.

Colchester Digital Strategy

Karen Turnbull