Earlier this year Frome Town Centre took part in business benchmarking and, as a thankyou from Frome Town Council, all businesses who took part were entered into a raffle. Millers in the Westway Centre was drawn and won a lovely hamper (put together by Emporio la Strada). The hamper was gratefully received by the team just before Christmas, and in true festive spirit, Millers will be donating the gift to a worthy cause.
Frome takes part in a national benchmarking process so that towns can be compared. To do it, all businesses in the town centre were visited in order to collect information about what they do, how many employees they have etc. Everything from what’s new on the high street to where visitors to the town had come from was noted, catalogued and compared with previous years to see how Frome is doing in comparison to other towns.
This formal process was also further developed during the summer by 12 students from Frome College to give us an even richer picture of the make up of businesses in the town and what they need for the future.
Councillor Jean Boulton says “This benchmarking information helps us understand how to support the town’s businesses and provides a sense of how things are changing. We’d like to thank student Jim for his wonderful support with the project.”
Key results from last year have shown that Frome has a remarkably high rate of independent shops (72%) with an exceptionally low shop vacancy rate (2%). If you’d like to find out more, and see how Frome fairs on a regional and national scale, contact Charlie Orr at orrc@frometowncouncil.gov.uk to get a copy of the latest report.
