Craig Hurring

Craig Hurring, Chief Executive of Love Wimbledon had provided an update which was shared at the meeting.

Apologies I cannot be with you this evening, I would have loved to meet more of the local community tonight, but regrettably I have an unavoidable childcare clash. I will do my utmost to attend the next meeting in June.

I have been in post as the new Love Wimbledon Chief Executive for just over 2 months now, following Helen Clark Bell’s decision to step down after 10 years in the role. The BID begins its third term on 1st April 2022, and much of my immediate work has been focused on renewing our vendor and supplier contracts for the new 5-year BID term and setting budgets for our immediate work in 2022/23. We’re also experiencing some personnel changes, with 2 retirements this year following in the wake of Helen’s departure, meaning the team will look different by the time we are back to full strength, and I am more fully established in my role.

I’ve been keen to meet as many stakeholders as possible since being in post and have been introduced to a number of Love Wimbledon’s important levy payers, key suppliers, Councillors, Merton Council representatives, Stephen Hammond MP and other bodies operating within the wider Wimbledon area. They have provided a warm welcome and together helped me to build a good understanding of the impact of Covid on Wimbledon Town Centre, and where there are opportunities for us all as we plan for recovery. This will be a major focus of the BID’s work over the coming months, as we consider how to take our pandemic learnings into building a vision for what Wimbledon Town Centre offers residents, domestic visitors, international tourists, current businesses, and future businesses both in terms of our high street offering and evolving workplaces.

We’ve also been busy bringing activations back into the town centre, to coincide with a growth in footfall since restrictions were eased early in 2022. For Valentine’s Day we installed a heart installation in the Piazza, which had real impact and was extremely well received, with partners, families and pet owners sharing their love with our wooden heart. We also relaunched our monthly market programme at the start of March, with Rock Choir kicking things off in style. We will be running a range of different market events throughout the year, including ones focusing on sustainability and Friday markets for more of a mixed residential and business audience.

It’s been a busy time for Love Wimbledon too in terms of our work supporting keeping the town clean. Covid has had a real impact on waste collection in the early part of 2022, and we’re working with Merton Council, Veolia, First Mile, and other waste contractors currently to deliver over 200 additional outcomes a month in terms of removing fly tipping, flyposting, and additional waste collection for our businesses. Our monthly Community Clean programmes have resulted in 80 interventions already this year to remove a spate of graffiti tagging and

provided additional jet washing to clean up some key areas. We will also be arranging a deep clean of Hartfield Walk next month, ahead of some snagging work which we wanted to do once the area had been through the winter period, while celebrating its first anniversary.

Moving forward we have a busy programme of events planned that I will be able to discuss in more depth at the next Community Forum in June. This includes a number of installations across the town centre to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, including a design competition for local children and the return of some of Love Wimbledon’s larger town centre activities, including Big Screen Tennis for the Wimbledon fortnight. From a green and sustainable perspective, we’ll be launching a cargo bike pilot programme for our businesses soon, with the support of Cross River Partnership and Merton Council and will be testing this with a range of different scenarios to establish how useful it will be to our businesses.

Once again, I’m sorry I couldn’t join you tonight, and I am looking forward to working with you over the coming months. Please do get in touch if you’d like to meet, I am really keen to see as many people as possible over the coming months.

Cllr Holmes thanked Helen Clark-Bell for her contribution to the Forum.