Colchester Chronicle

To Slack Space! …on Wednesday evening for a meeting of Destination Colchester, the:

“independent community interest company established to promote and improve Colchester for the benefit of its residents, workers and visitors.”

Which sounds right up the street of The Chronic. Anyone that wants to argue the cause for a positive image for Britain’s Oldest Recorded Town is a friend of ours. What soon became clear from the meeting however is that Colchester isn’t perceived as a utopian town. You don’t say. As The Chronic has stated previously;

“Sure, not everything is perfect, but there’s no point in making a list and then just moaning about what might have been.”

Which seemed to be a shared attitude taken by Destination Colchester. Two hours of ‘constructive debate…’ followed, talking about how we can celebrate our town, and how working collectively across the many different interest groups and individuals, Colchester can continue to grow to become a place that is great to live and work, as well as attracting visitors and economic growth.

Bill Hayton put forward a powerful presentation, asking how we can make Colchester’s heritage become a payday for the town. There’s no point in disguising any beastly reliance upon capital and commercial opportunities. You need to bring in the dosh if you want life in Colchester to continue to improve. This wasn’t a time for scented hankies over the nose; if you don’t exploit your town’s heritage then your neighibour will cash in on their history.

Bill stated:

“Official tourism statistics suggest Colchester could gain an extra £40 million in tourist revenue each year with a change in strategy. Figures produced by East of England Tourism (EET) – comparing Colchester with similar towns – show how we could benefit significantly by attracting more high-spending visitors. Other data, comparing Colchester with equivalent towns and cities, suggest the town could attract more first-time visitors and more staying visitors. A move up-market could earn the town at least £40 million per year.

In short the figures above demonstrate that Colchester doesn’t attract as many high-spending visitors as its peers but does pull in more low-spending visitors. This means Colchester earns less from its visitors than equivalent towns and cities.”

Hearing that we need to attract the much-chased ABC advertising group may sound harsh, but the free market means that the money often trickles down. It isn’t sufficient however to simply have a sugar daddy spunk away an afternoon in the tourist shop at the Castle. Local hotel owners were represented on Wednesday, a point that Bill also addressed in his presentation:

“Colchester is not attracting as many staying visitors as its peers. EET’s report ‘Economic Impact of Tourism 2008′ showed that although Colchester had more visitors than Cambridge (4.4 million vs 4.1 million), far fewer stayed the night in Colchester (278,000 vs over 1 million). Increasing the number of staying visitors to Colchester by 10% would generate a further £5 million annually – according to EET’s 2009 Economic Impact Report.”

And so how does the outside world view Britain’s Oldest Recorded Town? Scented hankies at the ready, folks…

“On 5 October 2011, the Homes and Property section of the London Evening Standard included a full-page article on Colchester. It described Colchester as, “a rather anonymous town”, “best known as the home of the Parachute Regiment” and a classic clone town.”

Ouch.

Sure, we’ve had the opening of @firstsite around the same time as the ES piece. The cultural regeneration of Sunny Colch was never going to happen overnight. The classic clone town tag is rather harsh, as is simply dismissing the London hack for churning out a filler at probably short notice. The truth is perhaps somewhere met in the middle.

Bill added in the optimism of:

“There’s plenty of potential to catch up with our peers. The key difference between them and Colchester is the way they market their own heritage. If Colchester were to better present and market its heritage – in particular its Roman heritage – it could easily develop equivalent branding and impact. Experience elsewhere demonstrates that this would attract greater numbers of visitors, of staying visitors and of higher-spending visitors Colchester needs a meaningful external identity – an outstanding narrative to attract high-spending visitors to our doors. Successfully achieving that could earn the town at least £40 million each year.”

This was a stimulating talk that opened up the floor to much dialogue and co-operation. It was a genuine cross-section of Sunny Colch folk at Slack Space for the Destination Colchester gathering – businessmen and women, representatives from the voluntary sector, local councillors and bored bloggers – all were there. The following is a random selection of the comments that came out of the presentation:

“Tourists expect a town to tell a story. We haven’t seen this since the Victoria destruction of our heritage.”

“Coaches come in from Harwich with tourists. But when they arrive in our town, they are left on their own. There isn’t even anywhere for them to park.”

“Where is all the marketing money spent? We don’t get to see it…”

“It isn’t all about books and learning – people need the motivation to pick up the literature and go out there and do things in our town. We need dedicated Colchester ambassadors.”

“We need to recognise that Colchester isn’t 100% great. When visitors from our twin towns arrive, they express horror at the nighttime scenes along the High Street.”

“If you speak with our councillors then they will tell you that all is fine with our tourist trade. This isn’t the case.”

“Colchester doesn’t have a brand. We need to think very carefully about this. You can’t just manufacture one.”

Which was more or less the conclusion that Bill left us with after his presentation. Catching up with Bill after the meeting, he later told The Chronic:

“My conclusion was that the current strategy of marketing Colchester as a mixed bag of diverse attractions ends up as an ‘anytown’ message which attracts small numbers and leaves townspeople themselves dissatisfied. My diagnosis of the problem is that the CBC tourism people feel they have to represent the entire Borough in everything they do. Instead, I think, the Borough should develop different messages for different parts of the Borough and different audiences.

My suggestions are:

‘Constable Country’ – already quite well established around the Dedham Vale. Something based around the Estuary and a specific message for the town centre.”

Phew.

Plenty to think about. But little time to ponder as the Destination Colchester meeting raced through the rest of the agenda like a town that hasn’t quite taken in the historical importance of what has happened over the past two thousand years. Or something.

Let’s talk about Tymperleys.

Oh Lordy.

This was a very brief catch up, with the deadline for the expressions of interest to take a stake in the Colchester Borough Council owned museum being the following day. We heard how ten such bids are believed to have been submitted, with speculation that a very powerful application has been put in by Tiptree Jam.

Some members of Destination Colchester questioned how the bidding and evaluation process will be assessed. It is as simple as the highest bidder walks away with the lease? Or will the community element play an equally important part? Transparency was called for; clarification in the comments below would be greatly appreciated.

London 2012 was then talked about, and the possibility of the big party down the line in Stratford giving Sunny Colch a tourist boost. With the Olympic Park *possibly* easier to get to via Colchester than say South London, local hotel owners present confirmed a “zero interest” in bookings for the 2012 fortnight. There was a concern that to talk up Colchester as an easy destination for the Olympics would put the town at the ransom of the hit and miss train line into London – great when it works, woeful when it is buggered.

And finally, what of a better town centre, the next agenda item? Y’see that lovely old Victorian structure that dominates Sunny Colch when you speed in on the line and approach North Station? Nope? Eyes top right of the screen and you should be eyeballing Jumbo.

Jumbo is much loved in the town. It is also much misunderstood, maligned and made light of. The recent planning application by owner George Braithwaite to convert the Victorian tower into a restaurant was rejected 7:5 by the CBC Planning Committee last year. Jumbo dominates the town centre, both structurally and in spirit – a reminder of what once was, and what we still need to do in Sunny Colch to continue our progress.

But as the Destination Colchester meeting heard, the dilemma of Jumbo is that it is a public icon, but a private building. We were told that Sir Bob of Sunny Colch is entering discussions with the owner, in a bid to try and come up with a solution. The Destination Colchester consensus was that a mixed use would be most appropriate. Jumbo – and Mr Braithwaite – needs to be commercially viable. Equally importance is the heritage angle. A museum celebrating Victorian water engineering won’t support the project alone. A commercial angle is needed.

I legged it out of Slack Space, not as an escape for the challenge that is required to continue the regeneration of Colchester, but as an attempt to catch the last train. I just made it, breathless and full of energy. Which is just what we need for the work ahead.

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