Project

The Upmarket in Worthing provided town centre space for around fifty local charities, groups and businesses and attracted 12,000 visitors

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Description
Originally planned as primarily a charity market, Worthing's Allied Carpet showroom offered a range of challenges including an out-of-town-centre location, a huge floorspace and a dated shop space. Added to this were the flexible needs of the charity and community groups using the space.

The project ran for six weeks in November and December 2009.

A small team led by Worthing Lions and the Empty Shops Network brought together volunteers from other charities, community groups and local businesses and created a programme of activity, which turned the market space into a meanwhile community centre, hosting a wide range of activity.

Why it was created

The UpMarket was initiated by John Sayles the president of Worthing Lions, who wanted to give town centre space to raise the profile of small local charities in the run-up to Christmas.

Worthing Borough Council were keen to provide a space, partly to reduce their rates liability on a large empty shop.

After discussions with the Empty Shops Network, the project took on a wider brief to include visual arts, and a cafe was added; and as the project developed a programme of activity was included alongside the market to encourage footfall.

Organising partners:
Worthing Lions
Empty Shops Network
Empty Shops Radio
Worthing Regeneration
Worthing Borough Council

Event partners:
Charity Fair with 37 local groups and charities
Goring Scout Christmas Fair
Mask-making with artist Anne-Marie Plum
Massage with Worthing Shiatsu
Recycled 'Narnia' Christmas grotto giving away over 1000 children's books donated by Worthing Bookstack, supported by Gibbins Furniture and Worthing Removals, made by volunteers including home-educated children
Revolutionary Arts Group Christmas Art Fair
Pop-Up Gallery with site-specific work created by 20 Northbrook College foundation students
PC Workshop
Russ Bravo's Vinyl Swapshop
Worthing Recycle Christmas Social
Temporary BookCrossing Zone
The Soap Box homeless charity collecting point
Caravan Gallery

Impacts
Footfall in week one and two averaged 190 visitors a day during the week, with 430 on Saturdays. By week three, Saturdays were showing 1200 visitors. In week four, a weekday footfall count recorded 425.

Based on these footfall counts, The UpMarket had a total of 11,900 visitors.

A random sample on the Saturday in week four showed that 26% of visitors counted visiting The UpMarket as their principal reason for being in the town centre, suggesting that 3094 additional visitors were drawn to The UpMarket's location at the start of Worthing's West End by the UpMarket. This does not include visitors who were attracted by The UpMarket as one of, but not the only, reason for visiting the town centre.

In addition, The Upmarket featured heavily on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, generating extra exposure for this area of the town.

Participating charities had a number of preferred outcomes, including:
fundraising
profile-raising
recruitment

Most charities when asked were happy that they had achieved some or all of their aims. Three charities raised sums in excess of £1200 which they considered particularly successful.

Other charities recruited new volunteers, gained fresh perspectives on their work or were able to help people with enquiries, research or to access further support.

Worthing Lions were particularly pleased with the effect on their profile within the town, and the opportunity to explain their role in the third sector clearly to other groups and charities.

Worthing upmarket 1 Worthing upmarket 3 Worthing upmarket 4
Points where the project looked threatened, how was this overcome?
Thankfully the project was never seriously threatened; all partners were bringing different skills and experience to the table, which meant that if one partner was uncertain another would be able to guide them.

The only major problem was with low footfall at the west end of Worthing town centre, particularly as The UpMarket was in a secondary retail location; this was overcome by quickly creating a strong activity programme, and a volunteer flyering team to stand on the main street regularly.

The best story to come out of it (so far?)
The Upmarket had big impacts for charities and community groups, but the biggest impact was to create a true community centre, where people could use the town centre for social interaction rather than just shopping.

One elderly lady visited, and was able to tell the history of the Allied Carpet store; it was formerly a 'Value Victor' store, a precursor of Tesco. Her late husband was the manager of the first Value Victor store in Worthing, and our visitor met Mr Cohen, Tesco founder, when he visited. Given a cup of tea and some time, and this lady felt her story was important – she became a repeat visitor and made donations to many of the charities involved.

Northbrook College art students were given space and time to create site-specific work. At foundation level, these students were in the process of choosing further study options at degree level; working alongside professional artists in a live space for the first time, a number of them were given a clearer idea of which courses they should choose.

An artist exhibiting for two weeks brought her eight year old home educated son; he was able to meet people from a variety of charities and understand their work, contribute to the overall project by helping build a Narnian Christmas grotto, and encouraged to make his own artwork as well - a short animated film.

2nd Goring Scouts do not have a functioning home; their portacabin headquarters is in a state of collapse and is largely unusable. They were able to have conversations with other groups who have had similar problems and may have found an affordable solution to rebuilding.

Budget/costs explanation
The project used multiple budgets, as different partners contributed in different ways, so there is not one clear accounting stream!

Worthing Lions took donations from charities and organisations using the space, and paid the utility bills from these – making a small profit which has been donated to support work in Haiti. The average donation was £10 per week, with most charities booking for six weeks. Electricity was the main utility bill, at around £20 per day.

The Empty Shops Network covered capital expenditure costs, including printing signs and banners and purchasing equipment as needed. This capital expenditure is from a fund given by Worthing Regeneration, and provides equipment which will be used for future projects.

Income details
Donations from charities to Worthing Lions for table space
Donations to Worthing Lions for activity space
Individual charities income from sales
Public donations through collecting buckets etc
Grant from Worthing Regeneration for Empty Shops Network capital expenditure