Bourton Business Network is a not-for-profit collective, and our overarching aim is to provide a voice for the entire business community of Bourton-on-the-Water and to strengthen our ties with local people.
We have emerged from one of the working groups of Bourton Tourism Action Group, that was initiated by County Councillor Paul Hodgkinson in 2020.
We aim to occupy a vacuum that was created by the demise of the Chamber of Commerce some years ago and to represent the entire local ecosystem of commercial activity. This includes the agricultural community, the Industrial Estate, the service and retail businesses that our community and residents depend upon as well as those businesses that are geared to the visitor economy.
We envisage an alliance of collaborative minded individuals prepared to take action on the many challenges businesses face: of commerce, technology, environment, infrastructure, skills and well-being.
We aim to build a network to sustain a local community of interacting organisations within their commercial, physical and natural environment that will:
- Support strategies for post-COVID recovery
- Generate ideas and suggestions for the Bourton-on-the-Water “Neighbourhood Development Plan”
- Enable access to innovative thinking and discussion of ideas, concepts and practices that can help improve your business
- Provide advocacy on behalf of the business community with (amongst others) the Parish, District and County Councils
- Encourage a more holistic and/or joined-up perspective of the business community that can create synergies, help businesses become more resilient and address significant trends
- Be a force for good and mobilising effort, with the ability to react at pace, whether coping with addressing short-term problems or lobbying authorities where necessary, to make things happen that are beneficial for the whole local community.
- Help you to get some fresh perspectives on your challenges, meet new people, generate ideas for developing new opportunities.
Who Are We?
The band of active participants in getting BBN off the ground include:
- Allan Hymers – Cotswold Ice Creams
- Jill Hymers (Treasurer)
- Andrew Lund-Yates – The Old New Inn
- Diana Ray – Living Green
- Jon Wareing (Coordinator)
In addition we co-opted the support of the following enthusiastic residents in organising Music, Art & Food on the Water in 2021!
- Robert Cox
- Carol Groom
- Lynda Hicks
- Helen & Martin Macklin
- Clare & Graham Keyte