Regeneration

Liverpool

Without Walls

Innovation can come in many guises. At Liverpool BID Company, as the first lockdown eased there was a need for more creative thinking to support business, particularly hospitality, as Covid restrictions remained in place. Liverpool Without Walls, developed alongside Liverpool City Council, began as a pilot project to enable bars and restaurants to continue to operate, supporting the local economy and was the first of its kind in the country.

The programme launched in June 2020 as hospitality venues began to reopen post lockdown. With social distancing and household mixing measures remaining in place, venues raised concerns about their ability to make ends meet. Indoor covers and seating, with distancing rules applied, vastly reduced how many customers and guests that could be welcomed each day.

Liverpool Without Walls began as a pilot project on Bold Street and Castle Street, in consultation with venues, allowing them to extend their capacity into the public realm. Ensuring the roads were safely closed to traffic allowed tables and seating to be extended onto pavements, ensuring pedestrians and access could be maintained on the highway. A successful collaboration across council departments and the BID to ensure the safe use of outdoor space meaning venues have been able to continue to serve customers, who may have felt more comfortable dining outdoors.

The parklets used on Bold Street were especially architecturally designed for the public realm, bringing a natural feel into the city street which was drawn from an earlier consultation and feasibility study carried out with businesses on the street and led by the BID.

In total, the innovation ensured support was given to over 100 businesses in the city centre and over 700 across the city, with an additional sales of £8.9m going to the local economy. Restaurants, cafes and bars were able to cater for over 2,700 covers, with an additional 1,600 seats being created. For many smaller venues, often independents, extending into the outside area allowed them to have more covers than they had before the pandemic.

By bringing partners together, listening to the needs and concerns of businesses and responding to the unique challenge of a pandemic, creative thinking was able to support the economy and enable the city to continue to operate amidst uncertainty.

Demystifying

full fibre connectivity

LCR Connect is a full-fibre, ultrafast, gigabit-capable network spanning the Liverpool City Region – it’s a gateway to access next-generation future-proofed and cloud-enabled technologies.

You’re a business in Liverpool City Region and you’re hearing all about LCR Connect, you may even see us installing fibre. But have you ever wondered what it actually is, what it does and how it can help your organisation? Here’s a quick overview to the type of connectivity you can access via LCR Connect for your business.

FibreBright is Direct Internet Access, also known as Ethernet.

It’s an assured full fibre service, which differs from conventional broadband services that offer a shared capacity. Ethernet is used to connect devices in a network and is still a popular form of network connection. For local networks used by specific organisations — such as company offices, school campuses and hospitals — Ethernet is used for its high speed, security and reliability. From businesses to gamers, diverse end users rely on the benefits of Ethernet connectivity, which include reliability and security.

FibreLight, is also known as businessgrade Internet Connectivity

A cost-effective, high-quality, gigabit capable service it is a symmetrical service that offers bandwidths up to 500 Mbps. It can flex bandwidth as your business requirements change. For organisations using Cloud Services for applications such as Microsoft 365/Teams or dedicated business applications such as Oracle, network quality is key. It delivers a higher level of service quality than other broadband offerings making it ideal for applications such as Cloud, and SD-WAN.

FibreOne is our small business broadband

FibreOne is a full fibre connectivity option aimed at businesses with smaller bandwidth requirements, whether it’s because they’re a smaller business, a smaller site, have smaller budgets or operate smaller teams. FibreOne is an asymmetric low bandwidth service offering a choice of speeds.

Leased Lines are a dedicated connection

Our technology enables us to build a private network, supporting the secure transport of data between customer locations or data centres. We can build networks that support point to point, point to multi-point and any to any connections. These active links – sometimes referred to as Ethernet Access Circuits – are fully managed by LCR Connect and offer bandwidths similar to DIA at 100Mbps, 1Gbps, or 10Gbps. We support businesses that are moving from classic networking solutions to cloud- aware networking and those requiring large amounts of bandwidth between key sites.

To learn more or talk to one of our specialists, email hello@lcrconnect.com