Norwich BID Term 1
BID Term 1 ran from 2012 to 2017, establishing Norwich BID and laying the foundations for its long-term role in supporting the city centre. The programme focused on promoting Norwich, improving the city centre experience, creating a greener and cleaner environment and giving businesses a stronger collective voice.
During the term, Norwich BID delivered a wide range of projects across marketing, events, public realm, business support, transport, safety and sustainability. Initiatives included the introduction of City Hosts, free city-centre Wi-Fi, high-profile campaigns to promote Norwich, support for major city events and improvements to transport and accessibility. The BID also worked with partners to champion the interests of city businesses and secure investment and improvements for Norwich.
Read our Norwich BID 2017-22 Business Plan which looks back on the achievements made in BID Term 1…
Experience Norwich
First impressions matter. Our Norwich City Hosts provide practical support, local knowledge and a friendly face for tens of thousands of visitors every year. Their role extends far beyond providing directions; they help shape perceptions of Norwich as a welcoming, confident and visitor-friendly city.
Our urban art project enlivens vacant and tired spaces around the city centre with large eye catching murals to the theme of ‘City of Stories’. These large-scale and creative pieces of work deliver a new dimension to the city centre experience and build on Norwich’s status as England’s first UNESCO City of Literature.
Our city trails turn Norwich into a giant interactive adventure. Designed to encourage exploration, they guide families through different parts of the city centre, helping participants discover attractions and hidden gems while creating memorable experiences that strengthen connections with the city.
For many people, the festive lights are the moment that Christmas begins. Norwich BID’s investment ensures that the city-wide lighting scheme can continue each year, creating an important sense of occasion, pride and anticipation while supporting the critical trading period that many businesses depend upon.
Norwich BID organises wayfinding signage and banners across the city centre to help people navigate Norwich and create a consistent, welcoming identity for the city. The signage provides useful directional information, while banners contribute to Norwich’s visual identity and help reinforce the city’s ‘City of Stories’ branding.
Norwich BID provided free Wi-Fi across the city centre, available to visitors, residents and workers within the BID area. The service provided convenient access to the internet while spending time in the city centre.
VisitNorwich
During BID Term 1, Norwich BID worked with VisitNorwich to generate positive media coverage for Norwich and raise the city’s profile as a visitor destination. Through relationships with journalists, promotional activity and support for media visits, the team helped secure national exposure for the city and its events, attractions and businesses. This work complemented wider destination marketing activity, ensuring Norwich was regularly featured in travel and lifestyle media and helping to build its reputation beyond the region.
During BID Term 1, Norwich BID and VisitNorwich developed creative destination marketing campaigns designed to showcase what made Norwich distinctive and encourage people to discover the city. The Norwich: The City of Stories campaign celebrated the city’s unique character and helped establish a strong identity for Norwich as a visitor destination. The campaign built a substantial digital audience, with more than 14,000 Facebook followers, 12,000 blog subscribers and 8,000 monthly website views by 2017.
During BID Term 1, Norwich BID developed VisitNorwich’s digital channels to provide visitors with inspiration, information and practical reasons to explore the city. The VisitNorwich website and social media channels showcased Norwich’s businesses, attractions, events and experiences, while giving local businesses opportunities to reach new audiences. By the end of the term, VisitNorwich’s social channels had more than 8,600 followers, with a monthly reach of over 500,000 people, creating an established digital platform for promoting Norwich throughout the year.
During BID Term 1, Norwich BID produced the Norwich Shopping & Attractions Map, giving visitors a practical guide to the city’s shops, attractions, heritage and places to eat and drink. Distributed widely across Norwich and the wider region, the map helped visitors navigate the city and discover more of what it had to offer. By the end of the term, 400,000 maps were being distributed across East Anglia, helping to promote Norwich as a destination and drive visitors towards the city centre and its businesses.
Invest Norwich
Norwich BID works to bring additional investment into the city, helping to maximise the impact of the BID levy. Through identifying funding opportunities, developing partnerships and securing external investment, we support projects, initiatives and improvements that deliver additional value for Norwich and its businesses.
Strong economies are built on strong relationships. Through regular events and engagement programmes, we create opportunities for businesses to connect, collaborate and influence the future direction of the city. Just as importantly, these conversations ensure Norwich BID remains informed by the needs of the businesses that it represents.
