The Radiolink scheme also allows businesses to report retail theft and associated crime to the police. The scheme was introduced approximately 14 years ago.

Currently around a dozen businesses are members of the scheme, which is delivered in partnership between Derry and Strabane Policing and Community Safety Partnership (PCSP), the PSNI and Strabane town centre retailers.

This year, PCSP allocated £1,000 towards the purchase of six additional handsets so that more retailers can become part of the scheme.

Strabane Neighbourhood Policing Team Sergeant Ryan Johnston said that for businesses signed up to the scheme, it means their staff can keep in constant contact with one another and quickly alert each other and police to any criminal activity that may be happening in, or near their premises.

“We want retailers, businesses and the local community to feel safe when shopping and doing business and what’s so beneficial about this scheme is that staff in businesses can have instant communication with each other,” he said.

“For example, recently we had reports about counterfeit currency in the area. Traders were able to warn other business to be vigilant immediately and report any suspicious activity to police.

PEACE OF MIND

“We’re always keen to work with the industry to reduce harm to staff and businesses and so we are very grateful for the PCSP funding for this really great initiative.”

Jon McGinley, Manager at MediCare, Strabane Main Street added: “Having the town centre radio in our store has made a huge difference. Thanks to the support from PCSP, PSNI and Strabane Business Improvement District, we’re now directly connected to other businesses and the police, which has really helped us prevent theft and respond to suspicious activity quickly.

“It gives our staff peace of mind and has definitely made the town feel safer for everyone. It’s a vital initiative for traders in Strabane and we’re delighted to see it expanding.”

Emma McGill, Strabane Town Centre Development Manager said: “The town centre radio system continues to be a vital tool in supporting communication and safety across Strabane’s business community. It strengthens the link between retailers and local police, helping to deter anti-social behaviour and respond quickly to incidents.

“We’re incredibly grateful to the PCSP for their additional funding which has enabled the purchase of six new radios, expanding the reach of this invaluable service. Town centre safety remains a key priority for Strabane BID, and initiatives like this are crucial in ensuring that Strabane remains a welcoming and secure place for shoppers, visitors, and businesses alike.”

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The theft of cash and goods was reported to police on Monday 8^th July, and it is believed it occurred just before 5am.

Anyone who was in the area and saw any suspicious activity or who may have captured footage which may assist police with their enquiries is asked to get in touch on 101, quoting reference 202 of 08/07/24, or submit a report online using the non-emergency reporting form via www.psni.police.uk/makeareport/ or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org

The post Police appeal after theft from farm shop first appeared on Neighbourhood Retailer.

Voice For Locals, which was awarded £1.82m by the UK Community Renewal Fund, offers micro and small businesses a range of free skills, marketing and other services to aid their business’ recovery.

More than 1,400 businesses have enrolled to avail of the benefits, of which 250 businesses have innovated new processes in their business, and over 500 businesses are to be certified in August.

Following the success of transforming St George’s Market to trading online and sponsoring High Street Heroes NI – a campaign from Retail NI and supported by Voice for Locals – working relationships have been established with many local councils, business improvement districts (BIDS), enterprise agencies and chambers of commerce across Northern Ireland.

Voice For Locals is all set to level up local businesses across the Strabane area. Kieran Kennedy, Chair, Strabane BID, said: “Strabane BID is delighted to welcome Voice For Locals to help micro and small businesses recover, rebuild and rebound post pandemic. There are a lot of small and micro businesses, in addition to independent stores in this area.

“Our members are facing a perfect storm of challenges including energy hikes, labour shortages, National Insurance increases and Covid-19. The prices of many commodities are soaring and the cost of doing business is rising. Now is the time for businesses to look at new and innovative ways to secure and grow their business.”

“I welcome this free initiative for business to avail of modern technology to assist in post pandemic and cost of living recovery. It takes less than ten minutes to sign up and I am confident Voice For Locals will allow business owners to increase their visibility and credibility, and boost profitability to mitigate growing costs.”

Emma McGill, Strabane Town Centre Development Manager, added: “It’s incredibly important that we do everything we can to support our local businesses at this time. Strabane is proud to have a large number of independents and this project provides an ideal opportunity for these businesses to engage with their existing customers, attract new customers and grow sales, all whilst promoting footfall into their premises.

“The potential here is significant for businesses to recover and rebuild and we are delighted to be part of the driving force behind that.”

Jay Thattai, Founder and Steering Authority at Voice For Locals, said: “We are looking forward to working in partnership with Strabane BID. There are so many synergies and collective efforts yield better results than individual efforts. The membership organisation is a priceless asset to the local business community, helping it navigate some of the hardest times ever faced. The BID’s objectives align perfectly with ours in that it wants to support members and help them rebuild and recover.

“We provide the digital tools for data driven business decisions and enable business owners to go digital with mobile apps, get marketed locally, get certified with e-learning courses endorsed by City & Guilds, and avail of personalised business and technology advice, to build a self-reliant economy in the wake of the pandemic.

“The levelling up initiative has been designed to address a number of challenges. At a local level, it allows engagement with a broader audience, on a more consistent basis, thanks to the Voice For Locals digital directory of all rated businesses across Northern Ireland, ni.voiceforlocals.co.uk. Meanwhile, with an expanded digital presence, local businesses can now tap into rest of the UK, Europe and world markets that would have otherwise been unattainable.”

Mr Thattai adds: “Each business will have a dedicated landing page with a business description, an enquiry button to generate leads, and pictures and videos featured in the Voice For Locals NI directory. Business owners will be given the tools to collect genuine customer ratings and reviews which will reflect online automatically, encouraging online shoppers to shop locally with confidence.

“This is a personalised small business success programme. A dedicated team is in place to provide mentoring until the business owners become self-reliant. It is completely free and fully funded by the UK Government. The consortium, which includes firms Unloc Limited and TieTa UK, hopes to support even more businesses in Strabane as they navigate recovery post pandemic.”

The consortium’s tender win for the project makes it the recipient of the fifth largest grant in the UK and the largest in Northern Ireland. Unloc will provide the technology, marketing and skills development element of the offering while TieTa will offer business and technical support. The team is working closely with City & Guilds to gain recognition for e-learning programmes delivered to local businesses throughout the scheme’s duration.

This project is funded by the UK Government through the UK Community Renewal Fund. For further information log on to voiceforlocals.co.uk

Caption: Aidan O’Kane, President, Londonderry Chamber of Commerce; Michael Kelly, Vice Chair, Strabane BID and Jay Thattai, Founder and Steering Authority, Voice For Locals.

The post Strabane BID announces partnership with Voice For Locals first appeared on Neighbourhood Retailer.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen an increase in food businesses based in people’s homes. Since March 2020, 32% of new food ventures registering through the FSA’s digital service ‘Register a Food Business’ are run from domestic kitchens at private addresses, with many more failing to register with their environmental health teams as a food business.

These sellers are potentially putting consumers at risk as they may have little knowledge of food safety.

All food businesses within the Derry City and Strabane District Council area have a legal obligation to register with Council 28 days prior to opening as it is an offence not to do so. Businesses must register whether selling online, via social media sites, trade from a physical customer-facing premises or simply selling food from a home kitchen.

Without registration Council cannot assess the nature of the business, provide appropriate advice or give a Food Hygiene Ratings where appropriate.

Alderman Graham Warke, Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council, said: “We have seen an increase in people selling food from their homes over the course of the pandemic. That’s why we’re working with the FSA to support businesses within our council area to ensure they are registering and keeping us informed of changes to their businesses.

“Registration is free and cannot be refused. If you are already trading and have not registered yet, you need to get registered as soon as possible as this is a legal requirement.”

Michael Jackson, Deputy Director – Head of Regulatory Compliance, at the FSA said:

“District Councils need to know who is trading in their area and registration is an opportunity to ensure that food businesses have access to relevant guidance and support to help them get it right from the start and to protect consumers.”

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She tells Neighbourhood Retailer how the retail bug bit and how serving the community still drives her.

When the chance came round for Briege Ashley to write the final chapter for her Co-op journey as home there was only one hurdle, even if it was a sizeable one… would her husband and teenage children go for it?

Thankfully they did and for the past seven years she’s been back in her home of Strabane, having started her retail career in the north west of England, where the company itself began life back in 1844.

“This is my 30^th year with the Co-op. I ended up going to university in Manchester after going through Clearing. After the first term I thought to myself ‘I’ve no money and can’t do a lot’, so I got a part-time job with the Co-Op. It was a great time to be a student in Manchester but no fun if you didn’t have any money,” explained Briege.

Briege continued working in her local store throughout university (where she studied Information Management) and when she wrapped up her degree there came a major fork in the road.

“I finished my finals on the Friday and started as an assistant manager on the Monday and six months later I was store manager,” she told Neighbourhood Retailer.

“Four years later I was promoted to area manager and I’ve done that in the likes of Warrington, St Helen’s, Macclesfield. Our head office is there in Rochdale and it is where we were born.”

Rugby religion

Briege, a natural people person, even acquainted herself with Rugby League (a religion in that part of the world) to make Monday morning conversations with colleagues a bit easier.

“I was area manager over there for a number of years and seven years ago the opportunity came up for me to move back home to Northern Ireland,” she said.

“I had a husband and two teenage children to think about but fortunately they supported me. My husband is a Manchester lad and was working in local politics and decided the quality of life here and with the kids the age they were the timing was perfect.”

With 26 stores spread throughout Northern Ireland the area manager load is spread between Briege and her colleague Declan Kavanagh, as she explained.

“I look after 12 in the north of Northern Ireland, and he looks after the others. The job is about looking after the customer and driving commercial within each store but ultimately both of those are driven by the colleagues I have to look after.

“My motto has always been ‘get the people right and the rest will follow’. As you know the people of Northern Ireland are just fabulous and my reward comes from seeing people better themselves, giving themselves a better quality of life and also doing what we can in the communities where we are based.

“The colleagues are the face of Co-op and how they treat our customer dictates if the customer returns. It’s about serving the customers and serving them well.”

On the move

While there are currently no plans to expand the number of Co-op stores in Northern Ireland the company is not exactly standing still in 2022, as Briege explained.

“We continue to develop the offer and ensure we create a compelling reason to come to the Co-op.

“A huge area is the rollout of E-commerce for us. We have our own online shop which launched in 2019 and has been rolled out at pace and all Co-op groceries are available through the Deliveroo platform in a number of stores in Northern Ireland along with our own online shop. That offers a combination of home delivery within two hours or a click-and-collect, both of which were extremely beneficial when it came to Covid.

“We are also looking at different partnerships in terms of what makes the customer cross the threshold, so we have partnerships with Hermes in several stores which brings in additional footfall and Amazon in a number of stores and John Lewis, which is in progress as we speak. With no John Lews here in Northern Ireland we expect that to prove extremely popular.”

Brexit too has thrown up countless challenges for retailers with the Co-op team doing all they can not to pass the various problems onto customers when it comes to paying for their groceries.

Briege told Neighbourhood Retailer: “I know our team in Manchester worked extremely hard throughout all of this and there is a lot of volatility in the marketplace which has driven costs, not just with Brexit but also Covid.

“To be a responsible retailer within the community we have to work very hard to make sure the impact is monitored and that we are not passing that to customers as much as possible, trying to mitigate and absorb that cost as much as we can.

“It is an unknown factor and will likely continue to be for some time to come.”

Fighting inflation

And Briege explains that the fight against inflationary pressures is not just about keeping the budget retailers but also boosting local producers along the way.

“We have always been committed in terms of our convenience offer, our customers want to shop local, and we serve that purpose fantastically,” she told Neighbourhood Retailer.

“The flip of that is all the local products that we source, which is helping the local economy and keeping costs down. for consumers and ourselves.

“If you take the logistic costs alone, we have our own depot in Carrickfergus to stock local products which keeps costs down in terms of transport.”

Of course looming large over every issue, including Brexit, in the past two years has been Covid and Briege could not be more proud of the work her colleagues have done throughout.

“It has had a massive impact on retail, the biggest I’ve seen in three decades. People valued their local store even more and our colleagues were not just seen as shop workers they were seen as a lifeline.

“I could give you numerous examples of customers phoning in orders to stores and colleagues dropping them off on the way home, or someone putting up on Facebook that they needed help and our colleagues responding. They were incredible in terms of serving the vulnerable and it is at times like this that you see the true grit of the people that work you.

Building communities

“There is nothing like a pandemic to bring people together. That may have been the only positive from Covid, it helped build communities again and helped show the fantastic people looking out for one another.”

And even with staff off ill or isolating the Co-op made sure their local stores stayed open to serve throughout.

“Myself and my colleagues worked all the way through this, trying to make our stores as safe as possible and stepping up to cover one another’s shift when people were ill or isolating,” explained Briege.

“With stores in which there are a small number of colleagues it has been difficult, but it has again proven the grit and determination to serve the community they work in.

“We have a big lift in the communities in term of our Membership offering and the money we pay out to causes every year, so I think the link is already there and it came naturally to our colleagues.”

Unique proposition

Indeed, that Membership Account is one of the things that makes the Co-op  unique, unlocking 2p in every pound spent into shoppers’  membership wallets with the company donating the same to a local causes fund.

“It’s where I get my energy from,” said Briege. “Every local community will have three causes. Around 40 causes in Northern Ireland benefit every year, the likes of Community Search and Rescue, Survivors of Suicide, and the Kevin Bell Repatriation Fund. We have celebration payday in November for the causes.

“We have also done quite a bit here with Cash for Kids. We’ve hosted collection points at Christmas and raised £10,000 for them in June 2019.  Our Co-op charity partner this year is around mental health and that’s Inspire so it’s great that all the money collected in our stores here is going to a Northern Ireland charity .

“Covid has only made the problem worse, with the likes of North Belfast already having the highest suicide rate among young men in Europe. We wanted to a make real difference in the communities we serve.

“We also have Food Share partners in the majority of stores, ensuring food is not wasted and helping those who need help the most.”

Retail bug

Briege admits that her route into retail was at first driven by necessity rather than desire but concedes that she has long since been “bitten by the retail bug”.

“To be honest I had not got anything lined up after Uni and was ready to come home but when they offered me the assistant manager job I thought ‘I must be alright at this’.

“The offer of the management position six months later was a fork in the road and I was doing a job that I was enjoying. The retail bug got me and as I a continued to be stretched and became an area manager the thought of going home left me.”

Now that she is back however, she’s glad to be able to make some lasting memories with her parents, her husband and her children.

“I live a rural life outside Strabane and it’s just nice to come home and go shopping with your mum or to take your dad wherever it is.

“I have a son at Queen’s and a daughter doing her A Levels. There’s a fair bit of taxiing her at the weekends and just de-stressing.”

And what of her future ambitions? “Just to keep making a difference for our customers here in the country that I love.”

To read the full feature in the Neighbourhood Retailer yearbook, click HERE.

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