A record number of 230 high streets entered this year’s Great British High Street awards and approximately 200,000 votes were cast across the seven categories. This year the public were given the chance to vote for the first time, exercising 50 percent of the voting power, with the other half lying with an expert judge from the Future High Streets Forum which is co-chaired by Simon Roberts, Executive Vice President of Walgreens Boots Alliance and President of Boots.
The traders on ‘Bishy Road’ have tirelessly worked to improve their high street to make it a great place to live, shop and work, earning them the ultimate accolade – Winner of Winners in the Great British High Street Awards 2015.
They can now look forward to a share of the prize pot worth £80,000 , as well as expert coaching from Google’s training taskforce for 100 shops, bars and restaurants.
Simon Roberts, Executive Vice President of Walgreens Boots Alliance and President of Boots, and Future High Streets Forum Co-Chairman comments:
“This has been a year of many great success stories for high streets. The competition has once again highlighted how healthy high streets continue to be at the leading edge of driving change.
It’s fantastic to see so many businesses demonstrating a culture where colleagues have the confidence to get involved and support the committed partnerships between local businesses, community organisations and local government.
The awards give us the chance to learn from the very best and continue to make our high streets even greater places to live, shop and work.”
At a prize ceremony held on 30th November in Admiralty House, London, High Streets Minister Marcus Jones comments:
“The excitement this competition has generated with a huge level of interest from the public vote is proof that high streets are the life and soul of towns, villages and cities across the UK.
Over the last year investment in property is up 30 percent, town centre vacancy rates have fallen to under 10 percent and retail sales have increased for the longest period on record – long may it continue!
Bishy Road fully deserves their title of Britain’s best high street and I congratulate them on their good work. We’ll be sharing Bishy’s top tips with other high streets across the country to make sure others may learn from their success.”
Bishy Road was a finalist in last year’s competition but has gone on to do even bigger and better things. The town has started work on an ambitious new community app which has been toured around the country to help other local areas to learn from their success, and it has hosted a range of new events and food festivals.
There were seven categories in the 2015 Great British High Street Awards:
- City Location Winner – St Giles Street, Northampton
- Town Centre Winner – Rotherham
- Market Town Winner – Helmsley
- Coastal Community Winner – Amble
- Local Centre Winner – Bishy Road, York
- Village Winner – West Kilbride
- London Winner – Pitshanger Lane, Ealing
Bishy Road was named the Winner of Winners.
Due to the high-quality of this year’s new entries, the judges decided to create a special additional prize of Best Newcomer, which was awarded to Faulkner Street, Hoole.
The Great British High Street Awards 2015 is run by the Department for Communities and Local Government and is sponsored by Boots UK, Costa, Post Office, Marks and Spencer, Tesco and the British Council of Shopping Centres.
Now in its second year, the competition is one of a number of initiatives aimed at helping to champion high streets as the cornerstones of communities.
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For further information please contact Claire Stuart on 0115 959 5995 or email Claire.stuart@boots.co.uk
About the Great British High Streets
The Great British High Street Awards is run by the Department for Communities and Local Government and sponsored by Boots UK, Costa, Post Office, Marks and Spencer, Tesco and the British Council of Shopping Centres.
The Google Digital Garage on Tour is a workshop which includes sessions for businesses on finding and keeping customers online and the chance to have one-to-one consultations with Google specialists to chat through their businesses digital needs.
The final result across all categories was reached via an online public vote and expert judges assessments counting for 50 percent each. Between 1 October and 13 November 2015 voting was open free onlinethegreatbritishhighstreet.co.uk or on Facebook. Across all categories almost 200,000 votes were cast.
About Boots UK
Boots UK (boots.com), the UK’s leading pharmacy-led health and beauty retailer, is part of the Retail Pharmacy International Division of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBA), the first global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing enterprise. With 2,510* stores in the UK, Boots UK is committed to providing exceptional customer and patient care, be the first choice for pharmacy and healthcare and offer innovative 'only at Boots' exclusive products such as the UK’s leading skincare brand No7, all delivered with the great value customers love. Created over 165 years ago, the Boots brand is still at the heart of the communities it serves.
*As at 31 August 2015 excluding equity method investments