On Thursday, September 5th, Downtown in Business hosted the People Power Places Conference, in collaboration with the Liverpool BID Company at the brilliant Hilton Hotel Liverpool.
The conference marked the 20th anniversary of the Liverpool BID Company, celebrating two decades of transformative work in the Liverpool region, the work of BIDs around the country and similar initiatives around the world.
Throughout the day, attendees were treated to a series of thought-provoking panels on topics from placemaking innovation to international collaboration, offering an overview of the opportunities and challenges facing Businesses.
Reflecting on Two Decades of Impact
Bill Addy CEO of the Liverpool BID Company began the discussions with a welcome address delving into the history of the BID. He reflected on how different Liverpool was 20 years ago, lacking its wide range of retail outlets and how the BID has played a pivotal role in enhancing the city’s infrastructure, spearheading projects such as Liverpool One.
Bill believes newer projects such as the New Everton stadium will help expand the city Northwards, addressing the disparity between North and south of city and supporting communities.
Initiatives such as Liverpool restaurant week saw great success and helped give a boost to restaurants and hospitality venues.
Spotlight on communities
In our first Panel, we heard from Guy Butler who reflected on his time with Grosvenor, who back in 2008, were the driving force behind building Liverpool One.
Guy feels it’s important when conducting regeneration projects, we consider how they impact communities. Grosvenor largely won the bid to create Liverpool One because in doing so they promised to look at creating streets in the city centre not just a shopping centre- “The proof of the pudding is 20 years later Liverpool One is still going strong.”
Laura Pye of National Museums Liverpool explained that despite having great community-based cultural and arts provision, we need to lean into the international brand of Liverpool and its port links and try to expand this message outwards to attract tourism.
She also emphasised the importance of infrastructure. For example, we need to improve the route to the airport.
Liverpool has some great hotels and food now, which has brought the city centre closer to the dock. Laura feels we need to stop separating Cultural football, music and food tourism and start better marketing Liverpool’s comprehensive offering.
Matt Farrell of GSG hospitality gave his take on how we can encourage entrepreneurship in the current outdated tax system. He feels a Tax overhaul would encourage investment and growth. “Liverpool has a very varied estate, coffee shops bars etc but I would like to see more Michelin-guided venues so that we can start to re-write that narrative on what you can get when you come to the city.”
Tom Hetherington, founder of Landing Light, hospitality, and culture consultancy, feels we need to see Liverpool as more of an export industry- “People have ambitions beyond Liverpool.” Tom wants to see us attract big businesses as that would bring jobs and money back into Liverpool when organisations expand- “We have to look forwards it can’t be all about history and looking backwards.”
Sonia Bassey MBE, Chair of Mandela8, knows the negative impact preconceptions driven by past events can have on communities. The Toxteth uprising in 1981 resulted in international negative press around the community.
She would like to see more done to encourage trust between businesses and the communities they serve. She feels we need more visual representation of diversity in employment to make communities feel safer.
‘Penny Lane to Electric Avenue’
In our second panel ‘Penny Lane to Electric Avenue,’ we heard from Susan Finnegan Commercial Director of Culture Liverpool and founder of the Liverpool Culture Company.
She feels all cultural projects should be tied into communities to bring people in on the journey and get visitors out into communities.
For Susan it’s about how we use brands to shift the perception of the city, for example Liverpool’s partnership with the Bordeaux Wine Festival led to national PR and 25000 visitors.
Likewise, we continue to capitalise on media around Liverpool during Eurovision. Culture Liverpool have begun working with TikTokers and influencers to make Liverpool more Instagramable!
Gianluca Rizzo, leader of the Brixton BID explained that at their core, BIDs are about persuading people and selling a vision- “Bids have to prove they can deliver, we need to make sure everyone is part of the vision.”
The idea of BID’s is that everyone has their say; Brixton BID gives support to businesses starting out and has an Inclusive Community Fund.
By Twinning with a BID in Harlem in America, Brixton BID is trying to send a message that we have more in common with others than we might think- “We need to tap into universal values we all share.”
“If you don’t get invited to the party, just turn up.”
In Panel 3 we heard from Ryan Wain, Director of Politics at the Tony Blair institute for Global change who gave an analysis of the General election result.
He feels that to secure power after the next election, Labour will have to respond to concerns- “People in general feel disenfranchised like things are being done to them rather than for them.”
Ryan feels policies shouldn’t just be missions for Government but also a mission for the county and for businesses- “For people to believe in politics they need to see change around them and businesses will be massively important in that.”
Ryan believes in theory Devolution is a good thing, but that devolved bodies of power need to be better placed to serve their community- “there’s no point devolving power to a mayor unless its someone who knows their area.”
An international perspective on BID’s
In our final panel of the day, we heard from our friend from the states Michael Edwards CEO of the Chicago Loop Alliance. BIDs are a more established concept in the U.S, with 55 bids in Chicago alone.
BID’s became big sources of data leading out of the pandemic and an authority on how Covid affected Businesses. The Loop has played a big role in regenerating the city, putting on events and filling storefronts to give people confidence.
The Loop implemented a comprehensive diversity and inclusion system to engage more communities; initiatives such as Sundays on State where the street is closed to traffic allowing store owners to mingle have seen great success.
Michael pointed out the similarities between the BID and the Loop (for example Both organisations are part of the Global District Innovation Forum) opening the possibility of future collaborations.
Bill Addy gave the closing remarks for the day, emphasising the opportunity the upcoming Labour conference gives us to showcase the city and how despite there being lots of voices now in politics that are isolationist, its proven time and again that the best work happens when we come together.
We hope this event can serve as a catalyst for collaboration, sparking meaningful discussions on future initiatives. With the momentum generated at the People Power Places Conference, Liverpool is poised to embark on a new chapter of growth and innovation!
