Welcome New Members!
Annual General Meeting
We were pleased to welcome nearly 70 of you to our AGM on the 21st November in the ballroom of The George. We’re grateful to you all for voting us back in for another term of office! Once our official business was concluded we had an update on our cardboard recycling initiative from Dominic Manning. We then gave a full update on the BID feasibility study and we heard from Inspector Amanda Hover and Sergeant Jon Thwaites on the DISC scheme - more on both of those below. We had updates on: Late Night Shopping from Fran and Vickie at Simply Rye; the need for more stories and writers from James at Rye News, and for support for ‘Showcasing Rye’ - our town’s very own youtube channel run by KT and Martin Bruce subscribe to it here. Thank you KT for the great AGM photos!
DISC - Next Steps
DISC is electronic system for reporting shop theft, anti social behaviour. Levelling Up funding means it will be free to businesses across Rother to report concerns or incident, intelligence and crime reports and to share info between businesses. It is GDPR compliant and will be implemented within a wider context of preventive/early intervention behaviour change work. There will be a launch event in January and Amanda and Jon who spoke to members at our AGM will be spending some time visiting businesses around town to get as many of you signed up to the scheme as possible - the more businesses involved the more effective the system will be.
BID - Update
For the past month we have been running our feasibility study to determine whether Rye’s businesses have an appetite for becoming a Business Improvement District. All businesses with a rateable value in town were sent a postcard with a QR code to take them to an online survey for completion, and a further selection of businesses - to represent all sectors and sizes - were contacted for a one to one meeting with the agency undertaking our feasibility study - Mosaic.
If you were at the AGM you will hopefully now have a much fuller understanding of the potential that this offers and what the next steps in this journey are. Sue and Mo from Mosaic also attended the AGM and gave a comprehensive overview of how BIDs can be shaped, how they are governed and how they run. Jane and Sarah also gave a flavour of the types of activities and projects funded in other BID towns and cities to help illustrate how Rye might determine its own BID plans.
The full findings of our feasibility study will be in our December newsletter.
LEVELLING UP
Loo update
As you know we are still trying to determine the best use of the capital pot levelling up funding. Those who have been following this ‘exciting’ journey will know that many hours have been invested in trying to see whether we, the Chamber, could invest the funds into helping refurb the Station Approach loos. While this may seem a no-brainer and straightforward, it really isn’t. We have had further meetings with RDC in the last month and some progress has been made but it still isn’t clear whether this will be do-able within the time frame required for spending, and within the legal framework that RDC is happy with. To that end the Chamber continues to research alternative ideas for use of the funds that would be of benefit to the town in terms of public realm improvement: the criteria for the funding as dictated by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG - formerly the department of levelling up). Watch this space!
PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT
The last month has been a busy one in terms of planning and development issues for our town, the three following items being inextricably linked.
Rye Neighbourhood Plan
As many of you will know the Rye Neighbourhood Plan is currently being reviewed and has been open for public consultation for the past few weeks (consultation ended on the 26th November). The Chamber submitted representations on behalf of the business community in support of developments that will benefit the town but not at the cost of its character. We made the point that our Neighbourhood Plan talks of the importance of supporting our heritage assets, encouraging tourism, helping small businesses to thrive, and maintaining our artistic culture but we must ensure that our Town Council’s planning decisions are in concert with these aspirations while at the same time supporting growth and the wider needs of our community.
Martello Developments
After months of private negotiations with RDC, Martello last week made public its plans for four sites around Rye. The Chamber attended a stakeholder meeting held at The George on the 26th November. The plans are ambitious as you will have no doubt read in Rye News. While final plans are unlikely to be submitted to RDC until summer 2025, the next few months will be critical in terms of public consultation. The most contentious issue is perhaps the future of the Rye Creative Centre, and Martello’s plans for developing the critical green space between Rye and Rye Harbour known as the Strategic Gap. We would encourage you to make your voices heard on these plans. The plans will be made available on a dedicated website: https://www.readytotalkrye.co.uk/ - this doesn’t appear to be quite ready yet - but please bookmark it and we’ll let you know when it’s fully active so you can take a look at the plans in detail and email your comments.
Rye Creative Centre
While plans may be a way off being confirmed for the former Freda Gardham School site, the artists who call the Rye Creative Centre home have been given notice that they will need to find a new home from next summer. We are working closely with them, along with District and Town Councillors to see what influence can be brought to bear on securing their future. We feel very strongly that we must not lose our artistic community from Rye.
RDC Overview & Scrutiny Committee: Task & Finish Group to consider second homes & AirBnBs in Rye & Camber
At last month’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee meeting the terms of reference for the Task & Finish group looking into Second Homes & AirBnBs in Rye & Camber were ratified. This small group formed of: Cllrs McGurk, Osbourne and Hacking will report back to the O&S Committee in June 2025 with their findings. Rye Chamber lobbied hard for this study to be undertaken and are pleased that it is finally going ahead. We understand that the February meeting of the T&F group will focus on stakeholders and we will be pleased to be included in that discussion as the impact of second homes and AirBnBs is of great significance to our business community.
CHRISTMAS
Late Night Shopping
Sadly Storm Bert meant that the official switch on at The George had to be cancelled, but our traders in town didn’t let that dampen their spirits and those who braved the elements enjoyed a warm welcome for Late Night Shopping with prosecco, mince pies and seasonal snifters aplenty! Well done to everyone for a sterling effort.
Christmas In Rye
Saturday 7th is the Christmas Festival in town - promising plenty of live music around town, and once again our shops and businesses pulling out the stops to make things fun and festive for visitors and locals alike. The day will be rounded off with the annual Carol Concert at St Mary’s - doors open at 5.45pm for a 6pm start. Please follow @christmas_in_rye on instagram if you aren’t already to keep up with the day’s planned schedule and repost to your followers.
Rother - Shop Local Campaign
Rother’s annual Shop Local Campaign has a fresh look this year, with artwork designed by Gresty. A Rother Nice Neighbourhood - is the strapline for the campaign and we think it’s a pretty good one! Small posters will be available for you to display in your shop windows, we will have them available to collect at our Christmas drinks on Thursday 5th but will do our best to distribute them around the town if you can’t make it to pick one up.
Christmas Tree Festival
Rye Chamber are delighted to be sponsoring the inaugural Christmas Tree Festival at St Mary’s this month. The idea being for local groups and businesses to represent themselves in the form of a decorated Christmas Tree creating a free attraction in the town for visitors and local community on the run up to Christmas. We had a great deal of fun setting up the Chamber’s tree - check our instagram reel if you’ve not enjoyed it already. The big ‘switch on’ was at the Toy Service on the 1st of December and all 28 of the trees will stay illuminated until the 20th of December. Do take the time to go and have a look - the festival display includes some from our members - the Heritage Centre, The Paper Place, Ethel Loves Me, The View Pilates and The Mermaid. Our tree features Jane and Sarah in angel form at the top and a handwritten Christmas tag for each of our members.
Visit 1066
Our DMO secured a brilliant piece of coverage for Rye in inews on Saturday 23rd November. Our town came top in a list of stunning towns to visit before Christmas, and the piece included a mention for the Christmas in Rye Festival.
Christmas Drinks
We’d love to welcome you to Chamber HQ on Thursday 5th from 6pm for a Christmas drink or two. If you’ve not registered yet please do so here, so we can make sure we have enough wine and mince pies! Simply click to register!
Xmas Parking Concessions
Here's the dates for free parking over the festive season for Cinque Ports Street, The Strand, Bedford Place, Lucknow Place and Gibbet Marsh car parks.
RDC will advertise the concessions on their website, through My Alerts and our Communications Team. They will also place signage within the car parks and on/at the machines; and RingGo will be notified so they will suspend the parking charges on their app and telephone payment system.
Remembrance Sunday
The Chamber had the honour of representing our town’s business community, laying a wreath at this year’s Remembrance Service. The weather was on our side for the parade in town and St Mary’s was standing room only for the service. We were delighted to be invited to join the Remembrance lunch hosted by the Rye & District branch of the Royal British Legion afterwards at the Mermaid to mark the occasion.
Marshlink Community Rail Partnership AGM
The Chamber attended the Marshlink AGM held at the Town Hall on 15th November. Our MP Helena Dollimore was also present and spoke about the importance of good public transport for jobs and education in the area and also her continued support for the campaign to reintroduce Eurostar services stopping at Ashford International. The AGM was very informative including presentations from:
GTR (Govia Thameslink Railway) on performance, corporate social responsibility and ‘Your Station, Your Community’ fund
SER (Southeastern Railway) on performance and plans for 2025 including Railway 200
Friends of Ore station on the work to create a community garden
Our Line Officer updating on progress and including our line action plan
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See you next month!
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