{"id":7747,"date":"2020-07-12T12:11:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-12T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/?p=7747"},"modified":"2023-09-28T14:22:50","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T14:22:50","slug":"presenting-on-putney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/presenting-on-putney\/","title":{"rendered":"Presenting on Putney"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On Friday 10th July, Nicola Grant presented in the fourth webinar in a series for the High Street Tasks Force<\/a><\/strong>. This weeks webinar focused on the effective use of communication and branding to support the transformation of high streets. It was an honour to be asked to share what we were doing in Putney to an audience of five hundred place leaders listening in from across the world and thought it would be interesting to share here also. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Putney is\nmost famous for the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race held in early Spring every\nyear which sadly was cancelled this year. This itself was a massive blow for\nour hospitality businesses who rely on that day to make significant amounts of\nincome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those\nwho don\u2019t know; Putney is in South West London, within the Borough of\nWandsworth. Putney is\nlocated on the River Thames with Putney Bridge going from Putney into London\nvia Fulham. Putney Bridge was the second bridge to be built over the Thames in\n1729. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nPutney is just 6 miles from central London it feels miles away. Putney has lots\nof green space, lots of beautiful houses and has a strong community spirit. Putney\nis popular for exercising outdoors, especially for rowers, runners and\ncyclists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although a quote from 1903 we could not say it better if we tried: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And thus we take leave of Putney, one of the pleasantest of the London suburbs, as well as the most accessible. The immense increase in the number of houses in late years testifies to its popularity; but there is still an almost unlimited extent of open ground which cannot be covered; and with wood and water, common and hill, there will always be an element of freshness and openness in Putney seldom to be obtained so near London.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2009J. C.\nGeikie, The Fascinations of London, 1903<\/p>\n\n\n

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Putney has a rich historical past. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRobert the\nFerryman of Putney\u201d was mentioned in the household accounts of Edward I who reigned\nfrom 1272\u20131307 for taking the royal family across the Thames to Westminster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putney was\nthe birthplace of Thomas Cromwell, made Earl of Essex by Henry VIII.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Putney debates took place at St Marys Church, at the bottom of Putney High Street  in October 1647 which profoundly influenced British politics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sticking with famous politicians:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Pitt \u2013 PM 1783, and Clement Attlee PM 1945 to 1951 were both born in Putney<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Clegg,\nDeputy PM 2010-2015 lived here until he moved to America fairly recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unsurprisingly we have had various world champion and olympic rowers trained and nurtured in Putney including Sophie Hosking, gold medal winner in the 2012 Olympic Lightweight Double Sculls, Mark Aldred, who competed for the Lightweight Men\u2019s Four in Rio, and Jess Eddie, who won silver in Rio with the Women\u2019s Eight.<\/p>\n\n\n

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With four\nworld records, two Olympic gold medals, three Commonwealth titles, and wins in\nthe World and European Championships, Daley Thompson is considered to be one of\nthe greatest decathletes of all time and owns and runs a gym in Putney. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actors and musicians  – include Pierce Brosnan, Jason Flemyng, Grace Jones, and Simon Le Bon lives with his model wife Yasmin. Ronan Keating part owns a caf\u00e9 in Putney although he has not yet agreed to do a concert for us! <\/p>\n\n\n

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Frequently talking about Putney in their publicity is comedian Jack Whitehall who lived in Putney growing up and his mother and father still live here. Michael and Hilary Whitehall turned on our Christmas lights last year and during Lockdown they have frequently tweeted about people not adhering to social distancing as the Putney Embankment looks like the French riviera.  <\/p>\n\n\n

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Lastly, the cartoon character Mr Benn created by David Mckee in the seventies and aired on BBC up until the year 2000. David lived in Putney and based Mr Benns adventures in Putney. This image gives a great artistic impression of the Putney community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putney has amazing accessibility. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is served\nby mainline railway trains to London Waterloo from Putney train station and by\nLondon Underground District line from East Putney, and Putney Bridge stations. It has sixteen\nbus routes through the town centre and seven night buses. Putney Pier\nis served by the River Bus to and from Blackfriars Millennium Pier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putney Bridge leads into Putney High Street, with Upper Richmond Road coming across in a T which is part of the TFL red route network. <\/p>\n\n\n

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In the\nLondon Plan Putney is identified as one of 35 major centres, the classification\nmeans it has a borough-wide catchment, contains over 50,000 sq.m of retail,\nleisure and service floorspace and a relatively high proportion of comparison\ngoods relative to convenience goods. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the 2011 census Putney has a population of 77,000 people with 46% of residents classified as higher  “managerial & professional” socio-economic status. The average 3 bedroom house is \u00a3700,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vibrant Town Centre <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all\nthis going for it you would expect it to be a vibrant town centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a\ngreat retail High Street of the 80s and 90s \u2013 as had no local competition, had a\ngreat range of independent boutiques in small units on PHS. Daytime trade was boosted\nby large office blocks along URR<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It became a\nvictim of its own success and the national chains all wanted to come and priced\nout the independents. It became a clone town of the early 2000\u2019s and the loyal\nlocal residents started shopping in central London whilst commuting, online or\nin the improved local town centres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile permitted\ndevelopment rights changed the office blocks to residential losing vital\ndaytime trade.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Car ownership increased. Putney High Street is the most direct route into London from the A3. It is a narrow road, with high buildings, and lots of traffic which results in poor air quality.<\/p>\n\n\n

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We have a\nnumber of absent landlords with substantial planning applications but sitting\non properties with increasing vacancy and we have areas that look very run\ndown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not all doom and gloom but we do have our challenges. As retail demand has reduced, we had a thriving night time economy pre-COVID with all the busy workers returning late at night wanting to eat and drink, and at weekend with large rowing events and regular Fulham football crowds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putney is in the final round of the Futures High Street fund with a vision of “how do we make Putney great again?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Celebrating Putney <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To celebrate the rowing season towards the end of February we had a professional artist paint onto empty and operational shop windows with the theme of rowing and the River Thames \u2013 which although they were not appreciated by the rowing crowds as the races were cancelled they have been appreciated by our local residents on their daily exercise during lockdown, and are still brightening up the town centre<\/p>\n\n\n

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We had\nalready ordered 14,000 reusable cups to launch on Boat Race Day and for the\nsummer of 2020 for our pubs and bars. Instead of keeping them in storage until\nBoat race 2021 we have been giving them out to pubs and restaurants for them to\nuse in their outside dining areas now that they have reopened. This saves\nbusinesses money in buying single use plastics whilst helping the\nenvironment.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have always known Putney has narrow footpaths and have been working with Wandsworth Council over the last three years on a comprehensive programme of widening them. This work was mid way through as lockdown hit. We used the opportunity to put in temporary widening and sticking with our rowing theme we had playful social distancing stickers and queue management floor graphics made. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Within two weeks of lockdown we had joined shoppappy<\/a> to help businesses without an online presence to continue to trade.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Finally, our\nParklets \u2013 we actually ordered these pre-lockdown as part of our aim to make\nthe town centre more green and welcoming. We did not have any prior knowledge\nof how advantageous these would be if a pandemic hit. We posted this photo on\nTuesday this week and it has been our most popular social media post ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#ShareourPutney<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the middle of April Nicola was on a BID Foundation<\/a> zoom call and Polly explained how the Maybe Platform<\/a> could make managing social media easier, and ensure you were listening to the conversations that matter about your town centre. We are a small team and due to lack of time although we regularly posted on our social media channels we were not sure we necessarily listened and engaged as much as we could or should. So that evening Nicola opened a Maybe account and started uploading our BID businesses and Putney influencers onto the platform and very quickly in one place could see what they were all saying. Without being a technical wizard t is so easy to use and navigate. Anna then joined the training calls that Maybe were offering and we went from there.        <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We knew that people were using social media more than ever before and that as the BID we were privy to lots of information that people wanted to know \u2013 such as which businesses are open, which take aways are serving on which days, etc..<\/p>\n\n\n

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As the weeks progressed we were thinking about the change in people\u2019s lifestyles and the new way of working as an opportunity for Putney. We have always known we had lots of local residents who commuted into town and did not have time to use the local facilities apart from possibly at weekends. Thinking about the increase in desire to support local businesses, we want to make sure that people do continue to support them when life returns to some sort of normality. These people working from home for the foreseeable future and possibly forever how do we attract them into Putney?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the\nways was via social media using local businesses and residents to help us tell\nthe story of all the great aspects of Putney under the hashtag #ShareourPutney<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We launched\nthe campaign a month ago and there have been 350 posts using the hashtag, with\nengagement of over 3000. Our own social media followers have gone up by nearly\n20%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it has infact also assisted in achieving one of our principal aims in our business plan of \u2018helping businesses work better together\u2019 When we have discussed this in the past we have focused on physical networking, and encouraging giving each other business when possible, and deemed it more relevant for our office sector. However, through the #shareourputney campaign we have introduced to each other a community of independent businesses with the same aims. We have business owners who have told us they have owned businesses in Putney for 20 years and never felt so much a part of Putney. These businesses are now recommending each other to their customers both physically and virtually. We strongly believe that we have helped them through this pandemic, both emotionally and financially and made them stronger for the future. By sharing each others content they are reaching so many more people, all predominantly local which can only benefit them in the long run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next steps for us is a survey \u2013 what do these new people want in their town centre? How can we get them to come in on a daily basis. Is it work space, specialist shops, coffee shops? We will soon be launching it on social media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have\nalways run an employee loyalty scheme for people who work in Putney to get\ndaytime deals and special offers, to encourage daytime spend. We are now looking\nto expand this to residents working from home, maybe a loyalty scheme where\nthey collect points to spend back into Putney. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social media has also extended conversations for us with other sectors. A young local artist, Joe Rashbrook<\/a> saw the #shareourPutney and interacted with us which started a conversation which has resulted in him now working on an amazing welcome piece of artwork on an ugly building wall just as you enter Putney which ticks off another of the aims from our business plan.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Maybe platform has really made our social media conversations much more meaningful whilst reducing our workload.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Putney<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

  <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n#shareourPutney<\/a>High streets task force<\/a>Maybe<\/a>place leaders<\/a>putney<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday 10th July, Nicola Grant presented in the fourth webinar in a series for the High Street Tasks Force. This weeks webinar focused on the effective use of communication and branding to support the transformation of high streets. It was an honour to be asked to share what we were doing in Putney to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7760,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,542],"tags":[693,707,708,706,23],"class_list":["post-7747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-network-events","tag-shareourputney","tag-high-streets-task-force","tag-maybe","tag-place-leaders","tag-putney"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7747"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16463,"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7747\/revisions\/16463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clients.tomorrowadvertising.com\/positivelyputney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}