Welcome Welcome to the March issue of Totally Stockport’s magazine, packed with news, views and what’s happening in Stockport town centre. By now we hope to have seen the last of the Winter snow and freezing nights and are looking forward to longer days, lighter nights and opening up our Spring wardrobes.
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Last year the team at Totally Stockport held their first BIG Day Out that brought the Makers Market to Stockport’s historic Market Place. It was such a popular addition to the Market Place that this year the Makers Market are returning for a regular spot from March 10th. Turn to page 5 to find out more and plan your monthly visits to browse the fabulous craft stalls, taste the homemade treats and pick up unique gifts – all in the stunning architectural surroundings of the Market Place. It is good to welcome new businesses into Stockport: at Redrock, The Light cinema’s 10 licensed screens are pulling in the film buffs (more on pages 12 & 13) while Pizza Express, Zizzis and the Berretto Lounge have brought more choice for town centre diners, shoppers, visitors and the business community – read all about them on pages 14 & 15).
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Every town centre needs a good food and beverage offering. Stockport already boasts a great selection of independent coffee shops, cafes and award winning restaurants. New kid on the block is Hillgate Cakery: with a fantastic selection of homemade cakes and treats - the pictures over the page will definitely tempt you in! Over on Lord Street the former Little Jack Horner’s pub has pulled out more than a plum and is now home to Baekdu Korean BBQ Restaurant. Our editor Paul Day paid a visit to Petersgate Tap to meet the popular father and son who have become a firm fixture in the Stockport Beer Festival calendar. With Easter on the horizon, we bring you a selection of goodies and gifts and, even if April showers gather, you can look sunny in the latest fashions to keep you and your family dry. Enjoy finding out more about Stockport and we hope to see you soon. Totally Stockport is the name of Stockport’s Business Improvement District, or BID area. There are 280 BID areas across the UK, business-led and business funded bodies, formed to improve a defined area, in our case Stockport Town Centre.
20-21
4-5
News
6-7
Fashion
8-9
Christmas in Stockport
10-11
George Ezra
12-15
Redrock
16-17
Map
18-19
BID
20-21
Petersgate Tap
22-23
Business
24-25
Easter in Stockport
26-27
Stockport in Pictures
28-31
What’s On
The Makers Market is coming to town
It’s not Summer yet!
Remembering our fantastic Christmas
From Budapest to Stockport
Open for business
The Town Navigator
Your Business Improvement District
Our latest award-winner!
Planning for Stockport’s future
More than just eggs.
Our readers contribute...
A listing for the next three months
26-27 Get In Touch If you have a story, news or an event in Stockport Town Centre why not drop us a line? www.totallystockport.co.uk paul.taylor@totallystockport.co.uk Tel: 0161 244 9896
@totallysk
Totally-Stockport
News
The Allotment wins CityLife Award O
ne of Stockport’s real gems has beaten off the regions’ culinary best at the prestigious CityLife Awards 2018. The Allotment Vegan Restaurant won the coveted ‘Restaurant of the Year 2018’ having beaten an impressive shortlist that includ-
ed Hispi, Where The Light Gets In, Adam Reid at The French and Hawksmoor. Stockport’s Where the Light Gets In has also enjoyed fantastic reviews since it opened in the historic Market Place. Matt Nutter’s Allotment Vegan Restaurant attracts diners from a disproportionately wide area and Matt’s revelatory skill and imagination in the kitchen has drawn a much wider slice of the dining community to his small but beautifully presented Stockport Restaurant. After shortlists were drawn up by the CityLife team and a panel of experts, the public voted in their thousands across the ten categories to select the winners. An impressive 14,000 public votes were counted to reveal the winners and runners-up of the CityLife awards 2018, reflecting the diverse range of cultural movers and shakers across Greater Manchester. But the prize came to Stockport! Well done Matt!
Hillgate Cakery: A Sweet Treat on Hillgate
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f ever Stockport had all the right ingredients to become a foodie paradise, it must be now! While the Great British Bake Off relocated to Channel 4, we are thrilled that Si and Sarah Besson chose Stockport to locate their business, the Hillgate Cakery, on Lower Hillgate. Sarah baked her first cake to celebrate the first birthday of her first child and things gathered momentum from there. She set up a business making wow-factor celebration cakes from home before settling on 22 Lower Hillgate as a shop-window. When Simon stepped away from his work in Manchester, the couple could turn the shop into a fully operational café, with the same sort of funky vibe already propagated by Tramp hairdressers next door. This may be a small Cakery but it has a huge warm heart and the most tempting selection of homemade treats. Like our friends at The Allotment, Hillgate Cakery is a vegan affair, serving the most stunning vegan cakes. With an exterior and interior as bright as your mum’s hundreds and thousands, this is somewhere you just have to go. And often!
A VERY
T R O P K STOCCHRISTMAS
Stockport shone brighter than ever when the big Stockport Christmas Light Switch On took place in Merseyway in November. A record year saw thousands packed into Stockport town centre as Merseyway hosted its biggest Christmas Light Switch on yet.
Introduced onto the stage by Imagine FM’s star presenters Chellce AJ and Paul Willett,
a host of stars performed in front of an enthusiastic crowd, including The Stella Maris Primary School, Hannah from NK Theatre Arts, Ewan Sim, Roy Bennett, Jade and the Debut Academy Dancers who were all on top form. The Frozen Show singers set the snow scene with ‘Let it Go’ and Lymm based Jack Woodward wowed the crowd with his cool good looks and shining performance
ahead of outstanding shows from favourites including Alex Stewart, Lucy Spraggan and Amelia Lily. Even the Emperor (Ted) from the Plaza’s Aladdin panto production popped over. – oh yes he did! The show was rounded of by headliners and 90’s favourites S-Club Party and there was even some snow.
George Ezra
Totally Working for you in 2017
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n October 2016, town centre businesses voted to create a Business Improvement District, a BID, which, through a BID members’ levy, would raise £2.5m of additional funding over 5 years, specifically ring-fenced for projects that will enhance the town centre’s offering. The BID went live in April 2017 with key priorities including to make the town centre a safer and better place for customers and employees; to improve choice; to improve the marketing of all areas of the town and to make it easier to do business in Stockport. Stockport’s BID launched under the brand Totally Stockport, to build upon the fantastic things already happening in Stockport and to work with partners to make Stockport town centre a great place, with a sustainable future, for everyone. Following the formation of an initial Interim BID Board, the current permanent BID Board is, in the main, representative of businesses within the designated BID area within the town centre, including from Orbit, Marks & Spencer, MacDonalds, Grassroots Recruitment, smaller independents and Robinsons Brewery. The BID Board are working to deliver the aims and objectives as set out in the original Business Plan, available on the Totally Stockport website. IT’S BEEN A BUSY FIRST YEAR A full list of projects, news and events is included on the Totally Stockport website along with the weekly news articles published in the local Stockport Express. Below is a brief resumé of some of the projects covered in 2017. The website is an informative central source of information where businesses, shoppers, visitors and residents can find out more about what’s happening in the BID area, where to shop, what to eat, where to go and how to get there. For news, events, a business directory and updates on the work of Totally Stockport, visit www. totallystockport.co.uk We asked what you wanted to see in Stockport - Before the BID launched, we asked people across the ‘villages’ of Stockport and across the
borough about their perceptions of their Town Centre: what is important to the people of Stockport and the surrounding area, residents and businesses. Why do people come into Stockport? How often do they visit? What is their primary reason for coming into the town? Among our findings, we found that an alarming number of people hadn’t visited the Town Centre for many months if not years! Through the introduction of new family events such as the Totally Foodie Festival in June and the BIG Day Out in September we
The Town Centre App is available to promote businesses within the BID area and attract new customers. Download the App from the App Store or get it on Google Play. Contact the BID manager for more information. Steering Groups, comprising of a representative Board member and interested BID levy payers, have been set up to deliver the main areas of the Business Plan and develop new ideas covering Customer Experience, Marketing and Business. BID Brochure – version 2 gave the BID levy payers an update on what projects were being worked on which was delivered to all the businesses in the BID area. Totally Stockport pledged to support local community initiatives – these have included Heritage Festival Weekend, The Vintage Car Show and Foodie Friday. The BIG Stockport Christmas Experience – and it certainly lived up to its name! In 2017, Totally Stockport, Merseyway and Stockport Council worked together to produce the biggest and brightest Christmas yet!
attracted ‘new’ visitors and shoppers who had the opportunity to see the many positive changes that have been taking place over the past year. 12 months on, our teams will be back in the Stockport villages to find out how perceptions have changed, how many more people have visited and what else they want to see in Stockport in the future because Stockport in January 2018 looks very different to the Stockport in January 2017. We are delighted that the Totally Stockport magazine has proved so popular throughout the whole of Stockport, full of interesting articles of business, shopping, food and drink, What’s On, where to go, what to buy and what to see. In fact, it is now going as far as Buxton and Ashton to attract more people to the town. Pick up your free copy at supermarkets, libraries and points of interest. In case you missed one, you can view all previous issues on line at goo.gl/ a9GUKE
For details of these and all the projects that Totally Stockport has been totally working for you on, visit www.totallystockport.co.uk
Peters Tap
Stockport
A Town o
£8.5m Grant to Bring New Homes to the Town Centre £8.5m awarded for town centre living Stockport Council has won three major bids from the Government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) to kick start a new era of town centre living and make the centre an even more desirable place to live, work and play. The £8.5m grant, which has been won against stiff national competition, will help unlock key brownfield housing sites in Stockport’s town centre. Set to be used to open up and enhance previously underused areas of the town and the
river Mersey, creating new green spaces and bringing iconic historic buildings back into use, it will help catalyse further development and draw in new investment. Subject to further feasibility, it is planned to use the monies to help overcome the barriers of infrastructure costs and poor land conditions for Stockport’s new Interchange, the Weir Mill complex and Hopes Carr (Hempshaw Brook), bringing more than 500 new homes into the town centre.
Keeping Stockport Safe & Secure
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otally Stockport is on a mission to make everyone feel safe in Stockport and, while it is important that we are all vigilant and work together to reduce the occurrence of and prevent criminal activities happening in our area, Business Crime Prevention is high on the local agenda. ‘Business Watch’ is an initiative operating in Stockport town centre in a similar way to the Neighbourhood Watch scheme – where business owners and the local police team work together to prevent issues. Town centre wide CCTV and Store Radio have already contributed to dealing with, and in some cases preventing, petty crime. By getting involved with Business Watch, you will have the opportunity to find out how you can help to reduce crime. Shop owners will learn how to prevent offenders coming in to the store; if they do enter, how to stop them stealing and how to safely deal with aggressive people. By meeting monthly with business owners, information can be shared and priorities can be agreed. Businesses can take the lead on, for example, identifying the issues, raise these at the monthly meetings which will lead to the gathering of intelligence and action being taken.
Business Watch is a formally recognised group. Legislation sanctions the sharing of information and identification of suspects. Civil Banning Orders can be discussed and the police can assist with CBOs and ABOs. But most importantly, the key to its success is gaining support from businesses. It is a scheme run by businesses for businesses and supported by the local police, Totally Stockport and Stockport Council. The next meeting is on 27th February at 10.30 at the Light cinema, Redrock and we want town centre businesses to attend. For more information, please email Totally Stockport BID manager – paul. taylor@totallystockport. co.uk More Officers - Totally Stockport is working with Greater Manchester Police to improve security
and the presence of officers in the town centre. Not only will this enable crime to be dealt with quickly, their presence is intended to make us feel more safe and secure and act as a deterrent to would be perpetrators. Storenet Radio - There are currently 70 Storenet radios across the town centre, in the main used by the larger retailers. The Storenet team have identified at least another 50 retailers willing to take a radio if they were either free or subsidized. As part of their security initiatives, Totally Stockport is currently considering a proposal to subsidise the cost of Storenet Radio to businesses and provide training where required, on the basis they attend the business watch groups. Safer Stockport Card – This will soon be delivered to town centre businesses - a list of useful numbers to keep you, your staff and your customers safe.
Business
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wn of Investment and Opportunity Plans announced for the White Lion Stockport’s oldest tavern - the 15th century White Lion pub is to have new life breathed into it as it is converted into a mixed-use residential and leisure development. Having sat closed for many years, the four-storey building will be refurbished into high quality apartments above a new ground floor restaurant premise by Trafford Housing Trust and the Council. Work on the restoration is due to start over the coming weeks and when completed will give people another reason to visit the characterful Underbanks.
Introducing FoodSync Looking to get Involved in the hospitality trade? FoodSync are a Stockport based business who aim to support rural and urban areas to build a vibrant and sustainable food economy through supporting food and drink businesses that are looking to start out or grow. Their ‘Newbie Foodie’ programme is aimed at people who have the passion and drive to set up a food or drink business in Stockport and involves a series of meet ups, through which potential restaurateurs can gain business guidance, operational, financial, technical, supply chain, branding and marketing support. FoodSync have a great network of local, regional and national expertise to draw from. If you’d like to get involved, sign up at www.foodsync. co.uk/events/
Stockport Food & Drink Trade Show If you are a food and drink supplier or producer or you work in the food and drink sector then put Wednesday 20th June in your diary - this is the date for Stockport’s first Food and Drink Trade Show which will take place in Stockport’s historic market place. The show will be a regional showcase of great food and drink, celebrating the best in local provenance. The aim is to build a network of buyers and sellers within a 60-mile radius of Stockport, creating local supply chains, making them more effective and making it easier for food and drink businesses to gain access to good local suppliers and do business together.
As part of the event there will be a series of conversations covering topics such as the ‘Rise of Veganism’ and ‘Cutting Away the Supply Chain’. Speakers include Samuel Buckley from Where the Light Gets In, Matt Nutter from The Allotment and Paul Jones of Cloudwater Brew Co. There are a number of sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities available. For more details contact Jo@foodsync.co.uk or ring 07912 758486.