Tewkesbury Traders show their work hot on heels of the Queen of Shops

SCORES of Tewkesbury organisations, companies and traders are coming together to show how they have flourished since retail guru Mary Portas showed them the way forward.

They will join in a drop-in exhibition organised by Tewkesbury Town Council Regeneration Committee at the Watson Hall on June 18 and 19.

Groups from all over the borough which have been working to breathe life back into Tewkesbury are keen to be part of the exhibition.

Committee chairman Vernon Smith said: “There will be 36 displays plus information about 20 companies and home-grown, independent retailers.
This is your chance to see what’s going on in our town and what’s happened on the back of Mary Portas coming in to show us the way.
We want to show residents what ideas have come from Mary and us working together and what tell them about all the projects going on as a result of her visit.”

Mary put Tewkesbury on the map by featuring the town on BBC2’s The Money Programme in April last year.

Mary Portas is one of the UK’s foremost authorities on retail and is credited with turning Harvey Nichols into the household name it is today. She brought that expertise to Tewkesbury to boost efforts to bring more shoppers to the town.

Mary chaired a public meeting to find out how businesses were faring during the recession, what could be done to help and how the high street of the future might look. She listened to retailers’ and shoppers’ concerns and brainstorming ideas to help create a vision for the town centre.

The meeting, called Save our Shops and organised by Tewkesbury Chamber of Commerce & Industry, was filmed and shown on TV in June last year.
The programme looked at three high streets, London’s thriving Marylebone High Street, Dunstable in Bedfordshire, feeling the full effects of the downturn and Tewkesbury, which was shown as ‘every town’ – a place with some difficulties but opportunities too and somewhere between the other two.

Exhibitors at the Watson Hall show come from all corners of the borough and cover a wide spectrum of issues.

They range from the Severn & Avon Combined Flood Group and Gloucestershire County Council highways to The Moorings, a group of Millavon residents working with town councillors, and Tewkesbury Re-enactment Society.
Other projects featured will include the town centre regeneration project looking at improving road safety and air quality, new toilets and the Jubilee Way Nature Reserve.

Students from Gloucestershire Launchpad training centre in Tewkesbury are helping to set up the exhibition.

Entry is free and it is open from 11am to 5pm on Friday, June 18 and 10am to 4pm on Saturday.
For more information, please ring Coun Smith on 07966 430525.

For more information on The Tewkesbury Regeneration Initiative, please follow this link