Research

HTCI (Hitchin Town Centre Initiative) created and delivered many successful projects to improve the town centre and to raise its profile over recent years. These were paid for by operating a membership scheme that included an annual membership fee, and by running sponsorship and fund-raising events. Unfortunately the total sums generated were never sufficient to cover all of the improvements planned and many good ideas remained on paper through lack of money.

To check that HTCI was still tackling the issues that matter to businesses and visitors to the town, extensive market research was commissioned in 2007 from a company specialising in Town Centre Management development, New Horizon Limited. They circulated a comprehensive questionnaire to all businesses in town and analysed the returns from over 300 completed forms. They also conducted on-street market research with 250 users of the town centre, seeking their opinions on many aspects of it and how it could be further enhanced to better suit their future needs. Some discussions took place with commercial leaders and civic representatives too. Finally an “at a distance” telephone survey questioned a number of people within the local catchment population who should naturally shop in Hitchin but don’t, to find out why not.

The results of the research suggested winning BID status would be a way of achieving all that HTCI and the research had identified as important to the Town Centre business community but could not be funded.