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Chamber View

Chamber View  October 2009

 

 

As I enter upon the final month of my three year presidency, I am very aware of how much further the Chamber has to go before its considered and representative views are taken onboard and, where feasible, acted upon by local authorities. I am particularly mindful of this “glass half empty” view as I am currently being bombarded with complaints from a wide range of businesses in the town centre over the recently introduced on-street parking charges. We are about to conduct a survey of businesses in the town centre to measure the impact of this new parking charge.  Whilst I understand that issues over parking can never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, I find the implementation of this new charge in the middle of a severe recession to be unsympathetic at best if not thoughtless. We constantly hear the rhetoric of “working in partnership” but that is meaningless if the expressed views of one of the partners are totally ignored and action is taken regardless of the economic climate at the time.

 

On the other hand I can, with some satisfaction, look back over the last three years and see a number of achievements in which the Chamber has played an important role – if not leading the charge then in very close support. This is the “glass half full” view which I much prefer to take.

The southern end of South Street has been closed to traffic for most of the working day – roll on the day its levelled, paved and properly pedestrianised to bring integrity to our main shopping street and more business to the many small independent shops at the war memorial end.

The Chamber has played its rightful part in the wider community by running the stage and the music throughout Carnival day and, under the auspices of the Chamber-instigated Dorchester Music and Performance Group (DMPG) and supported with funds from DBID, has brought excellent Street Performers and a variety of musical styles to the streets of the town through its programme “Summer Saturday Live”.

Thanks to the Chamber, working with the Round Table, the town now has an invaluable, but affordable, resource in the ten easy and quick to erect and dismantle gazebos that have been used extensively by a wide variety of groups throughout the year.

The Chamber, with others, has played an important role in establishing the Speak Easy sessions to improve the communication skills of those who work in the town whose first language is not English. We also supported the town’s first “One World Festival” held on the Kings Road playing field on Sunday 4th October.

We have lent our not inconsiderable weight to applications by developers to improve the offer that the county town makes to both its regular and occasional visitors.  Christmas Cracker, run entirely by volunteers from the Chamber, has continued to provide a happy, entertaining and safe start to the festive season and this year’s Cracker, on Wednesday 2nd December, promises to be another very special evening in the centre of town.

The Chamber’s Town Promotion sub-committee is on the verge of becoming the town’s first Community Interest Company – a much wider-based group that will enhance the promotion and marketing of all Dorchester events whether run by the public, private or voluntary sectors and improve the promotion of the county town further afield.  This will be achieved in partnership with the Dorchester Business Improvement District (DBID) which remains the only one of its kind in the county, though many other towns are now trying to establish their own BID.

The Chamber was instrumental in getting this initiative off the ground and, now in its second year, DBID is helping to enhance both individual businesses and the town as a whole through a variety of initiatives many of which are only now coming on stream.

Before I hand on the impressive Presidential “bling” at the Chamber’s AGM on Monday 2nd November at the Wessex Royale, we have one more special meeting. On Wednesday 28th October at 6pm in the Wessex Royale, the Chamber will host a meeting with the Simons team, the developers of the Charles Street site in the town centre. This will be the first time for more than two years that we have heard from Simons whose project has been given an enormous boost by WDDC’s decision to re-locate their offices to the site.

As I take my leave of the Chamber I hope that my successors will continue to be tenacious in their pursuit of all that is good for businesses and continue to treat the Chamber and its members as an integral and important part of the mosaic of organisations  which, together, make Dorchester a very special place.

 

 

Alistair Chisholm

 

President