Portfolio for Beautiful Scotland Awards 2019

BID Category

Introduction

BID St Andrews is a Business Improvement District (BID) with over 250 levy paying businesses, operating within the medieval town centre of St Andrews. Established in 2015, BID St Andrews has worked closely with businesses and the local community to create and enhance the local environment. Making it a positive and beautiful place for all who live, work and visit the area.

Over the past 4 years we have invested just over £400k in projects and initiatives to create an environment that stimulates business, develops community and ensures our town is welcoming to all its visitors.

Working in partnership with our Local businesses and key stakeholders, we are delivering a growing number of key projects from Clean and Green to St Andrew’s Day Celebrations. Hosting International Events such as Pop in The City and using the town’s beautiful buildings to host some of Scotland’s best emerging musical talent at our St Andrews Sessions.

We have in the past been successful in achieving Gold in Beautiful Scotland and our hope is that 2019 will be no different. We have been working hard with local community groups and businesses to make sure that our St Andrews is beautiful each and every day.

We invite you to enjoy our, predominantly photographic, portfolio and get a better idea of our horticultural achievements, of how we have placed environmental responsibility at the core of the BID Business Plan and how we use our events to encourage intergenerational collaboration between our community groups, our visitors and our businesses.

Horticultural Achievements BID St Andrews has been working closely in partnership with St Andrews in Bloom since 2015. The partnership is rooted firmly in our business plan and demonstrates the collaborative nature of the town groups. The successful partnership has seen a stock of assets being built up over the years - from planters to obelisks. This has enabled us to grow our “Planters Programme” through Market Street, North Street and Greyfriars.

As result of our initiatives in horticulture, sustainability and community engagement, we continue to raise the profile of St Andrews as great place to live as well as being a leading visitor destination.

Notwithstanding our financial investment, what has been invaluable, has been the time apportioned in terms of man hours by the Clean & Green Team.

We invite you now to have a look at our work, we’ve had a busy year!

Autumn 2018

Glow Gold September – In Partnership with Fife Council and St Andrews in Bloom, our Clean & Green provided the labour to support the Childhood Cancer Awareness Campaign throughout the town

Winter 2018 - Getting Remembrance Day Ready.

Winter 2018 - Winter Lights Campaign

Winter 2018 - St Andrew’s Day Celebrations

Spring 2019

Preparation is the key to our success! Clean & Green Team getting into the soil with the St Andrews in Bloom Volunteers.

Sometimes Clean & Green will even fix it for you! After a little springtime hit & run, one of the St Andrews in Bloom Flower Butts was in need of some TLC. The Bid St Andrews Clean & Green jumped in swiftly to lend a helping hand… reminding us that not all heroes wear capes – some wear Hi Viz!

Summer 2019

BID St Andrews Clean & Green Team ensure the St Andrews in Bloom team are happy with their planters and undertake some heavy lifting to make sure that we are Blooming ready to welcome our Summer Visitors – including the seagulls!

Environmental Achievement Our key aim at BID ST Andrews is to make St Andrews Town Centre a diverse and beautiful environment to live, work and visit. Over the past 4 years over £400,000 has been invested in the Clean & Green Project. Our Clean & Green Team was created in partnership with St Andrews Environmental Network (StAndEn) Our team, work closely with Fife Council to address town centre issues such as waste collection & bin discipline, street sweeping frequency and quality, ‘A-boards’, on-street storage of items by businesses (e.g. beer kegs in lanes), removing defunct roadworks signs and sand bags, alternatives to ashtrays on tops of bins not emptied frequently enough, flyers and sign cable ties and refurbishment or removal of BT phone boxes. BID St Andrews consulted its businesses and asked them what the main causes for concern in St Andrews were. Seagull, Litter & Commercial Waste were the main areas highlighted. We found them to be linked in many ways, and based on the findings of a survey and in consultation with experts, we set about delivering the following ongoing projects Bid St Andrews Clean & Green Bin Upgrade Programme: Prevent Litter, Reduce Vermin, Reduce Seagull Pest We are now in our third year of the BIN Replacement and Upgrade programme. 54 New Bins in Situ, 11 on Order to complete Market Street and The Scores, 34 additional budgeted over the next 2 years. Fife Council recovered spare parts from 35% of the scrapped bins. The remaining serviceable bins went further out replacing more bins that were fit for scrap. Essentially we created a butterfly effect as far as Cupar, who also benefited from the bins we have swapped out. Nothing has gone to waste!

Seagull Campaign: A protected species in Scotland, there are limits to what we can do to diminish the Seagull Pest. To make St Andrews less appealing to our feathered friends we have implemented the following in order to take away their food source. Seagull Sacks &Leaflet & Poster Distribution throughout the town, in restaurants and retail.

Community Engagement Bid St Andrews successfully pitched for the 1st Edition of Pop In The City Urban Challenge

bringing 518 women to St Andrews for a one-day event. Pop In is an original experience a new way to discover a town by completing a series for 30 challenges in an around town. The Environment and Charity, were key challenge topics and to leave a legacy in the town we worked with some key community groups. Our community groups threw themselves into the event wholeheartedly and offered locals and visitors the chance to find out more about what they do in an around the town. Bloom – Pebbles in the Boat Project

Men’s Shed – Birdboxes & Chairs

Community Litter Picking Events – thanks to an Award from the Greggs Foundation, we are able to provide the equipment for 25 Litter Pickers for community Events.

Funding & Plans for the Future BID St Andrews has committed £100K over the next 2 years to continue delivering the Clean & Green Programme through to the Dec 2020.

On the successful renewal of the BID in 2020 we will be able to budget for a further 5 years

In addition to BID Funding we are working closely with the following stakeholders to seek funding for additional projects and materials:

St Andrews Community Fund

Greggs Foundation

The Links Trust

Fife Council

Event Scotland

Thank You, we hope you have enjoyed our portfolio.