Latest News

'Localisation' should include decisions on major developments

Read the latest Business Comment in The Inverness Courier on 8th May 2012 by Mike Smith, BID Manager here

Social Media Workshops

The Introductory Social Media Workshop held on Monday 16th April presented by Rene Looper of Tuminds Social Media was very well received.  Rene explained the benefits of using social media, such as Twitter, Facebook etc to promote business and many of those attending have already signed up for a further more intensive workshop.

More info coming soon

Easter Egg Hunt a Great Success!

The annual Great Easter Egg Hunt took place for the third time in Inverness over the Easter weekend. The event which is put on by Inverness BID & Eastgate Centre encourages people to move about the city looking for eggs hidden in retail windows.

This year entries were up on last year by about 50% with 1,500 people taking part. As well as being a fun day out it gives people chance to discover some of Invernesses best kept retail secrets.

‘Again this year, the BID Security Task Team will be on duty from Saturday 31st March until Saturday 14th April, excluding Sundays.

There was an excellent turnout from businesses at the Business Breakfast to hear Matt Smith (below right) the Principal Engineer for The Highland Council's Flood Team talk about the plans for the River Ness Flood Alleviation Scheme. He described it as an exciting project which offered the opportunity to develop the vista of Inverness’s greatest asset and improve its linkage and engagement with people.

Responding to today’s decision by the South Planning Committee to approve the planning applications by Arc Estates for a new hotel building at 92-94 Academy Street Inverness BID Manager (BID) Mike Smith said “We are delighted with this unanimous decision by the Planning Committee which is extremely important to ensuring the strengthening of the city centre economy.

Interested in learning how social media can benefit your business?

Social Media is now regarded as one of the most powerful ways to get your message across!

Perth will become Scotland's seventh city after winning a UK competition marking the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

The town based its bid on Perth's history as Scotland's first capital. Its city status was removed in 1975 as part of a local government shake-up.

Perth was one of 25 towns across the UK which applied for the civic honour in the jubilee competition.

Two other UK towns, Chelmsford in England and St Asaph in Wales, will also become cities.

There are 66 cities in the UK - 50 in England, five in Wales, six in Scotland and five in Northern Ireland.

Johnny Foxes/The Den were the winners of the night’s main award and are officially the “Best Bar in Scotland”.

The Gellions were awarded “The Health Award” one of the 4 other awards on offer to licensed premises throughout Scotland.

Best Bar None is a nationally recognised awards scheme for licensed premises and currently runs in over 80 locations across the UK. This year 285 premises throughout Scotland took part in the assessment process.

Saturday 12 May 2012 - 11:00am - 4:00pm

For the third year running the popular Classic Vehicle Show will take place in Inverness City Centre.

Vehicles from different eras will occupy the city centre streets and there will be a variety of entertainment including street performers, musicians and kids activities ensuring a fun day out for all the family.

Inverness's best bars, pubs and clubs were recognised for their customer care and commitment to a safer city centre at the Best Bar None Awards Ceremony this week.  The ceremony was held in the Town House and 16 pubs & clubs were awarded.  Seven gained Gold, Seven gained Silver and Two gained Bronze awards.  Overall Category winners were Love2Love, Johnny Foxes & The Den and The Gellions who go forward to the National Awards in Glasgow in March.

There has been a lot of media coverage recently following submission of planning applications to demolish 92-94 Academy Street and erect a new hotel in its place.

The Board of Directors of BID have had a number of meetings with the developer to understand the state of the current building and details of their proposals to replace it with a hotel development.

Following those meetings and indepth discussions with the project professionals the board of Inverness BID have voted overwhelmingly in favour of redeveloping the site as:

As the festive season comes to a close it is normal for one to both reflect on the past year and feel apprehensive about the new. Some fall out was predicted in the retail sector as the new quarters rents became due.  It would appear that for the first two Hawkins Bazaar and La Senza.

In this week’s On My Doorstep feature, Craig Duncan, chairman of Inverness Business Improvement District (BID) and franchisee of McDonald’s in the city’s High Street expresses his love for the city and the Black Isle

How long have you lived in the Inverness area?

I moved here five years ago from the Angus area with my family to start our business. We’re the franchisees for McDonald’s, owning the restaurant on the High Street, as well as outlets in Fort William and Elgin but in effect we have been investing in the area for the last 20 years.

They’ve been Rockin’ All Over The World, and now Status Quo will be playing in the Highlands next August.  They join Runrig and Jools Holland, who are both also performing shows at the Northern Meeting Park in Inverness over the same weekend

The Quo will be performing on Friday 24th August, while Runrig are on on Saturday 25th August, and Jools Holland & his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra on Sunday 26th August.

Scottish partnership first with new text messaging system

SafeInverness has become the first crime reduction partnership in the UK to implement a fully-integrated SMS text messaging system on its secure Members-only intranet.

BID has recognised the long service of Pat Veitch as co-ordinator of the annual Inverness floral displays with a presentation of a specially commissioned painting.

Pat has been the voluntary organiser of the floral decorations since the project started in 1994 and continues to act as liaison with businesses with regard to the installation of the displays.

BID Chairman Craig Duncan said “BID is enormously indebted to Pat for all of her efforts in maintaining the high standard of displays in Inverness city centre.

Check out our Inverness BID 2011 Christmas TV Advert which runs on STV from 24th Nov until 21st Dec promoting the theme "shop, eat & play"

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8eF8trQS8Y]

POLICE and partners today (02 December 2011) joined forces to launch Operation Respect which BID is a key player in organising the Security Task Team and Taxi Marshalls.  The initiative is aimed at creating a safer and cleaner Inverness for people, families and businesses over the festive period.

Norman MacDonald proprietor of Café 1 in Inverness has won the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards 2011 for food. 

Commenting on his achievement BID Chairman, Craig Duncan said:
"Inverness BID would like to congratulate Norman MacDonald of Café 1 on his achievement in winning the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award for Food.

Commenting on the decision of the Highland Council’s Planning & Economic Committee yesterday, Inverness BID Chairman Craig Duncan said that “the Board of Directors of BID are delighted that the councillors agreed to a one year Moratorium on Planning Applications Houses of Multiple Occupation in Inverness City Centre. Through their submissions under the consultation process the city centre businesses demonstrated that they were overwhelmingly in support of such a moratorium proposal.

read more »

BID AGM

INVERNESS BID LIMITED
4th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Venue: Mercure (formerly Ramada Jarvis Hotel), Church Street, Inverness,
6pm on Thursday 24 November 2011

read more »

BID Business Comment

The recent announcement that Roy MacGregor’s Global Energy Group has

purchased the former Nigg fabrication yard on the Cromarty Firth is

great news for everybody in the highlands area.

 

Being based elsewhere when the yard developed during the North Sea

Oil & Gas boom of the 70’s & 80’s like many englishmen I had very

little feel for the sheer scale of that operation which at its

height added an estimated £100m a year to the Highlands economy

whilst providing 5000 jobs. With the yard closing in 2000 my vision

read more »

Record Number of Small Businesses are Benefiting from Small Business Bonus Scheme

Small Business Bonus Scheme 

A record numbers of business premises in Scotland - two in every five commercial premises - are benefiting from the Small Business Bonus Scheme (SBBS), Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth John Swinney has announced.  Follow the link to the Scottish Government website and read more about it here

BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW!
WEDNESDAY 7TH DECEMBER 2011 11AM-1PM AT MERCURE HOTEL, CHURCH STREET, INVERNESS (Old Ramada Jarvis)
A training Seminar has been arranged by Inverness BID in partnership with Retailers Against Crime Scotland (RACS) and Northern Constabulary.

The Seminar will include

Theft By Shoplifting - Common techniques, credit card fraud, counterfeit notes, footage of ringing the changes scams occurring in stores (RACS)

Business Comment

By Mike Smith, Manager, Inverness Business Improvement District

I was very struck last week by a comment made at an Inverness Chamber of Commerce talk by Michael Moore, the secretary of state for Scotland, regarding the importance of business being successful.

The Liberal Democrat coalition government minister addressed his business audience with a comment: “If you weren’t there and if you aren’t successful, we couldn’t tax you and none of us politicians could argue about how to use the monies we take in tax from you.”

BID Manager Mike Smith spoke to the Inverness Courier this week about the idea of creating an 'Iconic' festival or event in Inverness which would put the city on the map globally in the same manner as Shetland's Up Helly Ha or Edinburgh's Fringe Festival.  He now wants to open this up to wider debate and find out what residents of Inverness think.

Click here to read the full article.

Visitors to Inverness will no longer need to ask for directions following the launch of a joint signage project by BID and Highland Council to make the City centre easier to navigate.

Click here for the full story

Nearly 50 businesses have now signed up to Safe Inverness’ secure intranet system and are benefitting from intelligence about crime and incidents in the City centre.

The system is free to all BID levy payers and allows you to receive intelligence from other businesses and the police, as well as almost real time alerts concerning incidents and crime on a weekly basis.  All you need to become a member is an email address.

More than 40 City centre businesses attended a recent BID breakfast to learn more about how to make the best of the tourism market in the Highlands.

The free event, which took place on Tuesday 28th June, heard from speakers Scott Armstrong, Regional Director of Visit Scotland and Freda Newton of Jacobite Cruises.

With their knowledge of who comes to the area and what they are looking for both speakers were able to offer information to BID members and answer all questions on the subject.

Twenty one licensed premises are set to take part in the National Best Bar None 2011 Awards following a launch on Wednesday 22nd June at a breakfast within The Room.

The launch was hosted by Inverness BID Chairperson Craig Duncan and attended by Provost Gray, as well as a number of invited guests including city centre licensee, members of the Inverness Community Safety Partnership and other agencies.

Business Gateway, in partnership with the Tourism Excellence Consultancy are pleased to offer you the opportunity to take advantage of the first WorldHost Training to be held in the Highlands. And what’s more,  it is FREE ( normal fee is £60 per person) 
 
The WorldHost training programmes were originally developed in Canada for the Winter Olympics and have now been brought to the UK by People 1st to ensure a World Class Welcome to every visitor to the UK.

City leaders from the six Scottish cities have signed an agreement to work in partnership with each other and the Scottish government to boost the economy and deliver shared ambitions for growth and investment.  Inverness BID welcomes the news and hopes the pledge will lead to investment in local projects and infrastructure. Read more in the full article

We have arranged free staff training seminars in partnership with the Scottish Business Crime Centre, Northern Constabulary, Remploy CCTV and the Inverness Community Partnership.
The seminars will focus on:
• Theft By Shoplifting – Prevention, common techniques, staff powers
• Violence at Work – Minimising risk, recognising signs.
• Shop Safe Radio System – best practice

They will take place on Tuesday 31st May from 1430-1700hrs, Tuesday 7th June from 1030-1300hrs and Tuesday 14th June from 1430- 1700hrs at the Ramada Jarvis Hotel.

BID has been working with Highland Council as part of the Cleaner Inverness Campaign on a gutter project to give City Centre buildings a facelift.

The level of growth in the gutters of some buildings is unacceptable and people have remarked on it frequently.

APRIL sees the start of the “peak season tourism” in Inverness and the Highlands.

Next stop on our events programme is the Classic Vehicle Show on Saturday 14th May which looks set to be another great family day out.

This will be the third year BID have staged this event and it just continues to get bigger and better, attracting people from far and wide to the City centre streets.

Classic and Vintage vehicles will be on display in Church Street, Inglis Street, High Street and Falcon Square.  There will also be music and family entertainment and the Parade Finale which leaves from High Street at 3 pm

Our online adventure continues with our entrance into the world of social media! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

Drum roll, please!  It's finally here - the new Inverness BID Website.  Over the last month, we have been working hard to develop a new and improved BID website as part of our drive to market Inverness City Centre and improve our communication with our member businesses, and the public.  

For the past year BID has been working with the traders in the Victorian Market to help establish them as a fully constituted association. The group had their first AGM in January and will now be working to promote and represent the Victorian Market.  We are pleased to have recently assisted them in submitting a funding application for marketing project to the Inverness Common Good Fund.

The highly successful Inverness Places to Eat and Drink Guide is currently in the process of being updated and we look forward to relaunching an updated version at the beginning of April 2011.  This is the second reprint of the handy guide to eating and drinking in Inverness and has proved invaluable for visitors to the City Centre.  All businesses are currently being contacted to update their free entry to the guide.

19th-23rd October 2010

From grannies in shopping trolleys to an acrobatic mannikin, some of the best European entertainers took to the streets at Inverness' first Autum Street Theatre Festival.  Inverness BID and Eastgate jointly presented a packed programme of events.  Main venues were created at the Eastgate Centre, the High Street and the Victorian Market.