A business improvement district working to create a more vibrant town centre through both physical improvements and soft initiatives
Nairn Connects
Nairn, Scotland
£100k annually
Nairn Connects, local businesses
Historic Environment Scotland, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Paths for All, The Highland Council and others
2018 to date
Town (pop. 9,773)
Economy
Mixed
Improvements to pedestrian comfort, convenience and personal safety / Improvements to route appearance / Improvements to wayfinding / Cultural, community and local business engagement
Nairn, a small market town on the Moray Firth, is the second largest settlement in the Highlands. Formerly reliant on fishing, it now has a more mixed, tourism-led economy. It is bisected by a trunk road connecting Aberdeen and Edinburgh, so although the town is in itself a 20-minute neighbourhood, it is dominated by heavy road traffic.
In the early noughties, The Highland Council made the high street one way and installed traffic calming and dedicated disabled parking. However, the local view is that the positive benefits of such improvements will always be limited until such time as the town gets a bypass and the parallel main road of King Street can be detrunked. The town centre has also been undermined by out-of-town retail developments and the wider trend towards online shopping.
In 2015, The Highland Council consulted on a Community Town Centre Plan to identify the best ways to increase footfall in Nairn and deliver town centre regeneration. Although developed with the best of intentions, there has, to date, been little progress implementing the priority actions identified.
In 2018, local businesses voted to create a business improvement district (BID) – which is funded by a levy (minimum £125) on all local businesses based on their rateable value. This funds 1.5 FTE members of staff so that the town itself can take proactive steps towards improving Nairn’s reputation and making it a more attractive place to shop, visit and do business.
Alongside wider marketing, tourism promotion and business support activities, Nairn Connects (the BID) delivers initiatives to attract people to the town and improve the public realm.
The BID coordinates several annual events. For the last five years, they have put up the Christmas lights and made an event of their switch on, with ‘Countdown to Christmas’ offering a market, pipe band and festive refreshments. ‘Taste of Nairn’ (a three-day food and drink festival with market, cookery demonstrations and events such as The World Tattie Scone Championships) and ‘Wheels of Nairn’ (a classic car rally) have been run for the last four years, and summer-time street markets are held once or twice a year.
To highlight the importance of keeping spend local to Nairn, local businesses are encouraged to take part in national ‘shop local’ campaigns, such as Fiver Fest (when local businesses each set a special offer for £5). The BID distributes the free marketing materials around the town and coordinates overall marketing locally.
As having a town-specific gift card was too expensive, there was widespread take-up of the Highlands gift card by Nairn’s shops until it was discontinued due to external factors.
The BID has helped to create a more pleasant streetscape. Example measures include increasing signage, installing and maintaining 70+ planters and hanging baskets, deep cleaning pavements, fixing gates and painting passageways and shopfronts, and deterring seagulls where they present a health and safety risk.
The BID has secured an additional £200k in grants to fund specific projects, such as installing a permanent electricity supply to the high street, to power lights, stalls and music. Working with other local stakeholders on such projects is critical to Nairn Connects’ success. For example, working with Nairn PLAY and the Community Payback Team, it installed or renovated 30 benches at locations around the town. It also helped the Nairn Access Panel secure funding from Paths for All for an accessible pathway around the harbour.
To support the implementation of The Highland Council’s recent Active Travel Masterplan for the town, the BID is currently leading the town’s efforts to secure Places for Everyone funding for a traffic control scheme on The Brae (which links to High Street).
Nairn Connects is planning to monitor on-going town-wide footfall trends using mobile phone data from a specialist data provider.
Counts of visitors to recent events show that these attract significant numbers of people to the town. ‘Taste of Nairn’ and the street markets average around 8,000 people. Of the 7,800 people at the 2022 Countdown to Christmas, 600 were new visitors who had never been before. More than 10,000 people were attracted by the 2023 car show, with more than 80% of those surveyed saying they would return to Nairn even without the lure of a special event.
The biggest indicator of Nairn Connects’ success is that its mandate was renewed in 2023 – with businesses that collectively represent 85% of rateable value in the town voting to continue paying the levy and funding the BID’s activities for another five years.