We aim to increase the number of businesses in the target areas. In addition to increasing the number of new businesses, we also aim to retain existing businesses and to help them grow, and attract new businesses.

There are three elements to this theme:

• Working with individual existing businesses to deal with business issues and keep them located in the area
• Creating the right business-friendly environment that will encourage businesses to stay and others to move in to the target areas
• Establishing district centres as zones of opportunity for business

Working with individual businesses
Through the overall business services programme it is anticipated that we will identify businesses that may be considering moving out of the target areas.

Business brokers
Where the issues cannot be dealt with by generic business support, they will be referred to a business broker who will:

• Build trust and develop a long term relationships
• with companies
• Provide ‘hands on’ retention support
• Build and coordinate necessary expertise and resources where appropriate to provide solutions for retention problems

This will be procured via open tendering.

‘Business Friendly Planners’
This is about recruiting a designated planning team to provide a dedicated consultancy resource for the businesses.  This will be commissioned from Croydon Council Planning Department to:

• Provide information, advice and guidance to start-up and established businesses about the planning system, current planning system policies and the need for planning permission
• Develop a free pre-application planning service for SMEs in the target areas that encourage entrepreneurial activity
• Provide advice and support for those seeking to establish businesses around alternatives structural options within the planning system that do not require full planning permission
• Develop a portfolio of ‘grand designs’ in conjunction with other related programme work stream activity – premises brokerage, neighbourhood plans, business retention and inward investment service. 
• Fast track subsequent applications through the planning process through support and capacity building with the community.

Creating the right business-friendly environment
We will tackle issues related to business crime which is consistently identified as an issue by businesses in the target area, and issues related to poor perception of place and low pride in the area. We will use programme funding to make visible environmental improvements

Crime
The police have minimal data on commercial/business crime. We are conducting a business crime survey of 4,000 businesses in target areas to identify their priorities for action. This has been procured as a Foundation Building project through open tendering.

We will use the initial results to develop a concurrent programme focusing on involving local businesses in crime prevention activities; expanding policing activities; raising awareness and ‘target hardening’ local businesses; CCTV; and working in conjunction with the Safer Croydon partnership. This work is likely to be procured through a mix of commissioning (The Police and Croydon Council) and open bidding for grants or commercial contracts.

Poor perception of neighbourhoods and low pride
The main aim of this work is to encourage a sense of pride to the residents and the wider communities of the target areas.  It will include a targeted marketing campaign and community engagement activities covering:

• Celebration - highlighting all Croydon’s successes particularly in the target areas and promoting positive stories.  
• Perception - including a marketing campaign that challenge and rebut any negative views about the target areas, and a community engagement programme utilising a series of events workshops and activities to challenge attitudes.    
• Environmental projects - delivering a range of environmental improvements to the target areas
• Imagery - concentrating on developing a Croydon-wide branding scheme with separate branding being developing to re-create new and exciting identities for each local district.

Establishing district centres as zones of opportunity for business
The regeneration and re-birth of district centres is at the heart of our vision. They will become exciting locations for entrepreneurs to base their new or growing business. The focus will be not just on retail and hospitality businesses, but on creating a suitable environment and premises for a wide range of business sectors. There are a number of elements:

• Developing ‘mini 2020 visions’ to assist the rebirth of district centres, instilling new identities, and  encouraging a renewed sense of place, pride and community ownership. These will enable the programme to build upon the business, community, social and physical capital of its districts. They will identify low level but effective environmental improvements to the physical appearance of the target areas with immediate effect and increasing the attractiveness of those areas and making the borough a prospective area for enterprise. These will be commissioned from Croydon Council’s Planning Department, who may sub contract the work externally.
• District Centre Managers who will develop action plans to reduce vacancy rates, increase footfall and assist local businesses and act as the interface between the business sector and Croydon Council in trouble shooting issues such as crime, graffiti and waste. They will be recruited and employed by Croydon Council, but managed on a secondment basis by Croydon Business Ltd, who already manage Croydon Town Centre.
• The LEGI Surveyor service will be provided to encourage business start-ups, retain local firms and promote sustainable enterprises. It will provide advice on available property to new and existing businesses. It will also provide commercial property relocation advice to new businesses at the programme Enterprise Centres wishing to grow and/or relocate. The Surveyor will build upon the existing South London Database and develop a Croydon-wide database to bring empty properties into use. This will be commissioned from Croydon Council’s Asset and Facilities Management Team.

In the Town Centres, mini business centres will be established as bases for the District Centre manager, the Programme Planners, the property surveyor, and business broker. They will also be used as required by other programme services from time to time, such as business support.

It is also intended to locate three of the enterprise centres in district centres – please see Capital Projects.

Budget and Timescale (as at September 14 2006)