Retailing
In addition to the main shopping areas in each of the area's market towns, an out-of-town retail park can be found in Huntingdon and there are a variety of shops are located in villages throughout the district.
Town centres are a vital part of Huntingdonshire's economy. To help keep these areas viable the council supports town centre management partnerships/initiatives in Huntingdon, Ramsey, St Ives and St Neots. Town Centre Managers in each town help to support existing businesses and attract new companies and more customers. More information about town centre management, contact details for the partnerships/initiatives as well as links to their websites are on the right.
Maintaining a healthy retail mix and minimizing empty retail units is central to the council’s economic development retail strategy. As such the council has produced the ‘New Perspectives’ series of brochures. These are designed to give potential inward investors a flavour of the retail environments in Huntingdonshire as well as provide some basic relevant data. Links to these documents can be found on the right.
Reports on surveys of visitors' perceptions of Huntingdon, Ramsey, St Ives and St Neots town centres are available as linked documents on the right. The surveys were carried out in partnership between the town centre partnerships/initiatives and the District Council to find out about current opinions of the town centres and how visitors thought they could be improved.
The council commissions footfall surveys in November annually. Results can be seen in the summary report in the linked documents on the right.
The council's economic development service has created a register of local food and craft producers, which was distributed to households across Huntingdonshire. The aim of the register is to promote small businesses and encourage consumers to shop locally. An online version of the register can be accessed at the top-right.
Many people visit the district's towns to shop at the weekly markets or more specialist markets, such as the farmers' markets. Details of these are available on the right. Other occasional, specialist or continental markets are organised by the individual town partnerships and details of these will be found on their websites (see external links on the right).
The council also runs a programme called 'Make it Your Market' to help anyone thinking of becoming a market trader to get their business up and running (see link right).
Information on where shoppers can park, disabled car parking and parking permits can be found from the link at the top-right. Details of transport links to and from the district can be found in the document on the right.
Theft from shops and other crimes against local companies is being tackled by a new partnership called Huntingdon Business Against Crime (HBAC). For more information see the link in related information.
A booklet, 'Your Business - Keep Crime out of It', which aims to help small and medium sized businesses to better protect themselves and their staff against crime is available from the Crime Reduction website - see external link on the right.