The Welland Market Towns Group, of which the Deepings is a member, has worked together to develop a tool kit to compare their towns’ vitality on 12 key performance indicators. By comparing a range of measures across towns and over time partnerships can measure the impact of their work, based on facts not assumptions. 

During the second half of 2006 the DMP set about collecting information on the following:

Town Offer:

• Total number of retail / commercial / office units
• Units by classification e.g. comparison / convenience
• proportion of independent retailers vs. national multiples
• Multiple trader representation
• Number of markets / traders

Property;

• Property – prime retail property yields
• Zone A retail rents
• Number of vacant units

Business Performance:

• Turnover
• Business confidence - the business sector’s view of what constrains future growth

Usage:

• Postcode survey – identify location of customers
• Car park spaces
• Footfall
• Town centre user surveys

Crime:

• Community safety
• Retail crime

This was then collated and reports produced in spring 2007 comparing our results with the other participating Market Towns in the sub-region as a whole, as well as sub groups based on geography and population size.

The Welland SSP is now supporting the development of a web based system so that all stages of the research are accessible on line, including the methodology, the recording of information and the production of the reports.

It is considered that the co-ordinated assessment of these Key Performance Indicators is vital to the successful development of the towns as vibrant economic hubs, delivering a number of benefits for the individual towns & wider sub-region, including:

• The provision of a baseline picture of economic health for the 12 individual towns & the wider Welland sub-region
• The ability for towns to compare / benchmark themselves against similar towns throughout the sub-region
• Provision of a monitoring tool, enabling the towns to measure their economic performance / health over an ongoing period
• A tool to inform future town centre activity eg development of strategic town centre action plans & masterplanning / visioning initiatives (ensuring the right priorities are targeted for action)
• Use as a marketing tool – to attract future private investment
• A tool for emda / SSP to assess the economic value / benefit of funded market town regeneration activity & delivery of town centre action plans etc.

This project gives us the tools to understand what makes The Deepings special. At the same time it also gives us the opportunity to move forward in a more strategic way. We have already used this information to support applications for funding for some of our projects.

We will be completing the survey work once every year enabiling us to build a comprehensive picture of the Deepings in comparison to similar local towns, and to monitor any change resulting from the work of the DMP or other factors.