Retail partnerships

Building thriving and sustainable communities through partnership sits at the heart of Boots UK's long term business strategy, much as it has done for over 20 years. We're motivated by the knowledge that what is good for the local community is also good for our business - healthy high streets mean a healthy business.

Partners

We believe that we can achieve more to improve the external environment by working collectively with others, rather than independently or through a purely internal focus. Our partners often include local authorities, property owners, police forces, leisure operators, transport companies and other retail businesses.

Effective town centre management

We also recognise that retail in town centres will not grow and develop without a clear focus and delivery framework. If communities desire thriving and improving town centres they need to nurture and encourage investment into them, and establish a management process for them. For over two decades we have focused on supporting and promoting the development of effective Town Centre Management (TCM), and today lead the retail sector in influencing and engaging with Business Improvement Districts (BIDs).

Our contribution

Our commitment to managing our external environment stretches back some 20 years with the development of Town Centre Management initiatives in the late 1980s. Today our role and commitment to town and city centre partnerships is no less prominent. In 2010/11 Boots UK invested more than £400,000 to support town and city centre partnerships and Business Improvement Districts across the UK. Our Public Policy Manager sits on the Advisory Board of British BIDs, and is Chair of Heart of London Business Improvement District, one of the largest established BIDs in the UK, responsible for managing Leicester Square and Piccadilly. Boots UK continues to be a Corporate Champion of the The Association of Town Centre Management (ATCM), whilst we also contribute to local partnership engagement in a number of other more practical ways. An example of this more practical support includes running a training programme for newly appointed partnership managers. The course was designed and is facilitated by Boots UK, and in recent years we have made it available to all ATCM members. This twice-yearly induction programme provides around 30 newly appointed managers with a support resource which reviews the key challenges, and solutions, to local partnership management. The course is offered free of charge although we view the programme not in terms of the cost but in terms of the long-term benefits to the company.

Another way in which we provide support for the development of town centre partnerships is through the production of a series of best-practice briefs. These briefing papers, prepared by our in-house team, provide a wealth of practical information on a range of aspects relevant to the development of successful town centre partnerships. Subjects covered include ‘partnership development’; ‘lessons learnt from Business Improvement Districts’; ‘developing effective Retail Crime Partnerships’; and ‘car parking and managing access to out of town centres’. They are available to both town centre managers and store managers, and have also been requested, and made available to a number of external bodies where they have been used on their websites.

Making a difference

Playing a leading role in the debate is exactly what we have been doing when it comes to UK Government proposals for the introduction of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). Based on the American system where BIDs have been well established for some 15 years, they allow a local business community to vote in favour of a small addition to their business rates to pay for services above those already provided. In essence they have been motivated by a need to strengthen town and city centre partnerships, which have long been hampered by low levels of funding and business contributions. Our approach has been to engage in and influence the BID debate so as to ensure BIDs only move forward where they are going to make a real difference.

To assist this process we have led the sector in developing clear but challenging criteria that we believe is essential to ensure a BID programme maximises its potential. Each year, Boots UK works with the University of Ulster to jointly publish the British BIDs of the National BID Survey - a resource which reviews the development of more than 100 BIDs established across the UK and Ireland.

Boots UK is a member of Business in the Community's Business Action on Economic Renewal (BAER) leadership team. It campaigns to increase the positive socio-economic impacts of business on local communities, particularly in the most deprived areas. A recent initiative launched by the team and chaired by Boots UK was 'Future high streets: business going local', which looked at how corporates are engaging in the Governments' Localism Agenda. www.bitc.org.uk/community/economic_renewal/