Team London Bridge Services Update
We are now firmly in the Pre-Recovery stage of our crisis response. You might be at home, either working or furloughed, maybe you’re providing key services or are temporarily closed, or perhaps running your business with a new way of doing things – whatever your status Team London Bridge is here to support you and your business.
Pre-Recovery sees Team London Bridge mapping our resources, adapting our role and goals, and enlisting the services of our trusted partners to help our businesses bounce back and enjoy the support that comes from being part of such a resilient community.
Through this next period Team London Bridge will remain mindful some key learnings from the past 8 weeks:
The retail, leisure and hospitality sector will require additional support through the recovery process;
The amount of funding and legislative information that businesses have to process is vast and sources can be confusing;
Home working staff are adapting but many miss ‘going to work’ in London Bridge;
There is a huge thirst for virtual, online activities from the London Bridge area;
Recovery will need strong leadership and crystal-clear guidelines;
There is a strong desire to not lose the social and environmental ‘positives’ from the past few weeks – e.g. drop in air pollution, community relationships, respect for key workers;
Partnership work, local and national, is vital to a smooth and safe return to the workplace. We cannot work in isolation.
Team London Bridge is seen as a trusted partner and conduit for developing recovery projects. It must remain accessible, well-resourced and informed to respond quickly to the needs of members as policy changes overnight.
The BID Foundation and Institute of Place Management have identified four recovery stages for businesses, and we have adapted these to best suit the London Bridge community.
Team London Bridge 4 Stage Recovery Plan
We’ve modified our core services to help our community fight back from the current crisis period. Here’s a round-up of current Team London Bridge services:
Security and Safety
Our three BID funded Police Officers continue to keep London Bridge safe. In addition to helping deliver food donations to key workers when needed, they have been providing additional patrols around the hospitals to reassure commuting healthcare staff and continue to arrest and charge suspects for burglary and theft.
Our Business and Operations Manager Henry has increased his voluntary hours as a Metropolitan Police Special Constable to help patrol the London Bridge area.
Championing Business
Team London Bridge is using its connections and network of business groups, governmental bodies and BIDs across the UK to help shape and coordinate business support and response to the current crisis. You may have seen regular updates from Team London Bridge Chief Executive, Nadia Broccardo, and on our business information and advice section, ensuring our businesses have access to relevant and essential support. We continue to lobby on behalf of all business sectors within our BID and are collecting data and selectively asking our businesses to take part in surveys that will help shape essential recovery strategies.
Marketing and Promotions
Our businesses continue to innovate and inspire us as they navigate this strange but temporary environment. We are posting updates from businesses on the Team London Bridge Community Noticeboard and have created a new area of the website to showcase virtual offerings. We're also sharing posts on social media; Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Please do take a look and support them as they reinvent their offering to fit in with our much-changed lifestyles.
Team London Bridge new ‘Love London Bridge’ virtual content hub
Environment
Our significantly reduced one-man crew is adhering to social distancing guidelines and carrying out maintenance of our valued public green spaces such as Gibbon’s Rent, Greenwood Theatre Pocket Park and Queen Elizabeth Gardens. This will ensure planting survives the recent period of dry weather and our green spaces are looking their best to provide us all with much needed calming places to spend time in when businesses return in the coming weeks and months.
Culture and Events
Our virtual Love lunch sessions have been supporting employees working from home and showcasing London Bridge’s incredibly rich cultural offer via our digital communication channels. Wellness classes, yoga sessions, storytelling, history talks, and live music are just a few of the well-attended online events we’ve brought together, with Tower Bridge and Florence Nightingale Museum sessions proving particularly popular. The next few weeks will see more activities, including Poetry Takeaway and Musicity artists, as well as exclusive content from some of our favourite local cultural attractions. Looking ahead, we are working with external producers and partners across the arts to scope future and alternative projects.
Artist Gail Seres Woolfson hosts a Love Lunch session
Responsible Business
Following 15 years of successfully funding and developing relationships between local businesses and charities we have been able to make much needed early connections to relieve pressure caused by the current crisis , reaching out to charities based in London Bridge to involve them in the 2.6 Challenge and asking what sort of help they need. Read more about the project here .
Placeshaping
Regeneration and development continues, despite the all-encompassing public health crisis. Our Placeshaping Director has been studiously keeping abreast of plans as they change, liaising with developers and planners, and ensuring that decisions made in this period don’t divert from the vision of the London Bridge Plan and sustainably support the interests of our business community.
BID Ballot Update
Due to the uncertainty of the year ahead we are seeking to delay the planned October 2020 Business Improvement District (BID) ballot to allow more time for the London Bridge BID community to compile a five-year plan that can best benefit local businesses. We will let you know when we have more news.