Long read: Okehampton BID boss reveals bold plans to unlock town’s hidden potential

Okehampton’s new Business Improvement District (BID) manager Duncan Swift sees the town as a “half baked cake” with all the ingredients to be fantastic, it just needs to realise its full potential.

Eight weeks into the job he is brimming with ideas to bring that cake to pristine quality.

The chartered accountant, who grew up in Sticklepath and attended secondary school in Okehampton, has spent many years turning around the fortunes of struggling businesses and making people think in a different way.

In Okehampton he is on a mission to bring people together and work in a cohesive fashion to make the most of the opportunities on the doorstep.

He says the Dartmoor market town does not need more to attract people, it has everything in spades from independent shops, to adventure activities, a beautiful park, rivers and thriving business parks, all a stone’s throw from the moor and the A30, but it does need more people to know about it.

He will be using the next three and a half years of this BID’s first term to build the confidence and positivity of the town, and accessibility, better signage, a coach park and plans to reduce town centre congestion and anti-social behaviour (ASB) are all on the agenda.

Following a successful career working for the likes of Price Waterhouse and Grant Thornton with co-founding Azets in Plymouth among his achievements, Duncan, who later specialised in rescuing food production and farming businesses, was heading for early retirement but decided to take this post instead.

“I wanted to give something back to the community,” he said.

Duncan is the only paid member of Okehampton BID, its board of directors is made up of volunteers.

The BID works by collecting a levy from all the 270 businesses with a rateable value over £5,000 in the BID area which stretches from the town centre to the industrial parks on the outskirts.

This will raise around £150,000 each year to spend on initiatives to boost business and drive footfall.

Every five years, members vote on whether to keep it going or not.

It has worked elsewhere to great success most notably in Tavistock which has had a BID for 15 years and helped put the town on the map as well as fighting against things which could harm it like on-street parking charges.

After a rocky start in Okehampton including problems getting a BID manager and some tension in the community about paying the levy and how the money should be spent, the scheme appears to be back on track.

Okehampton is one of the fastest growing towns in terms of population in the south west and is increasingly being recognised nationally as a good place to invest.

“For me three things stand out,” said Duncan. “As a business community it lacks confidence, the town doesn’t play to its natural strengths and doesn’t realise its success.

“There is a fantastic amount of inward investment taking place, there are 500 new homes already built and another thousand in the pipeline and a new £16 million railway station, a second one for Okehampton, just built in the heart of the business estate and new housing development.

“It has fabulous business parks that the community needs to make more of, a town full of independent shops where you can get everything you need and it has connectivity to die for, both in terms of broadband and the A30 dual carriageway access and rail.”

Duncan says the BID is the platform to get the business community to act in a collaborative way and focus on the things people agree on not disagree on.

Engagement is the key with lots of meetings planned to get community groups and businesses around the table and he is working his way around meeting all 270 businesses.

With traffic congestion being one of the main bugbears of the community and gridlock through the main street at peak times, the new BID manager is exploring possible solutions alongside other aspects of the BID business plan.

Mark Turner of Donalds menswear in Fore Street said a relief road was something businesses and the community had called for for a long time but it had never come to fruition.

He welcomed moves to increase football.

“BID has the ability and funds to have a joined up approach to marketing Okehampton externally to bring people in which is good as footfall is not great at the moment but I know it’s the same across the country.

“This town is 99 per cent micro businesses where owners do not have the time to give to things like a chamber of trade. Having a BID will allow things to happen again.

“Another thing it can do is lobby and if it can lobby Devon County Council for a town centre relief road that is what we want as it is the only way the traffic situation will be solved.”

Rebecca Green of the bakery/deli Clockwork Kitty in the Victorian Arcade said the town needed something to help market it.

“The potential of Okehampton is huge. It is the only town for miles with a decent amount of shops, it should be rammed and buzzing but at the moment we are a stop off point for people on the A30 going into Cornwall.

“We survived Covid better than most, this is an extremely resilient little town but it can be difficult to get everyone to pull together.

“It really is the jewel in the crown of Dartmoor and needs to get the credit it deserves. If BID is the organisation to market Okehampton then we should support them, it’s time for the town to thrive.”

Jade Oliver-Deacon of The Toy Shop in Red Lion Yard said she hoped to see things happening rapidly in the first quarter of next year from the BID.

She agreed that businesses working together on primary goals had been a challenge and there was “a general disconnect” with the town and almost “a national divide” between the industrial estates and the town centre shops.

Duncan said he wanted to make sure that the whole town had something to shout about when the BID came up for renewal.

First things first is tackling crime and ASB by getting Okehampton signed up to the digital platform UK Partners Against Crime (UKPAC), a collaborative crime-management and reporting tool which connects businesses, rural enterprises, and local police to tackle retail crime, anti-social behaviour and theft.

The scheme has typically driven down problems of this nature by 70 per cent in places where it has been introduced.

Businesses will also be able to sign up for free training in skills like people management, human resources and manual handling for their staff which carry certification.

A master map of the town is also on the list: “This is a big one,” said Duncan.

“I’ve got about 15 maps so far but none which give a pictorial overview of the whole town. There’s a river map, a trail map, a heritage map… you name it there is a map for it.

“Someone is working on the master map for me, it will have a jazzier name than that, which will have an overview on one side and detailed maps on the flip side. The first place that will appear is at the new railway station on the visitors’ side so it’s the first thing they see when they get off the train.

“If they want to go to a park or a business on the industrial estate, it will tell them what bus to hop on to get there.”

But it’s not just visitors who are baffled at present about how to get to places in Okehampton, Duncan says there are children who go to school in Okehampton who have never been on the moor.

“This is about helping people navigate their way around the town as they may not even realise the access points at all,” he said.

“I aim to get this map into the home of everybody in the EX20 postcode and of course I will be asking all the coffee shops if they have space on their counter.“

Improving signage will be another top priority and bringing back a coach park which the town has not had for decades.

“The town has got some lovely facilities for people to spend time in, whether that is Simmons Park or the Victorian Arcade or Red Lion Yard,” said Duncan.

“Does it need to do any more to attract people? I don’t think so, the town has so much natural capital, it just needs to let people know it is here.

“It has all the ingredients, but I see it as a half baked cake at the moment and it will be my job to make it pristine.

“When businesses ask ‘what has the BID done for me?’ in three and a half years time I want them to be able to say they have a new coach park and better signs and a host of other things

“We might have a town-wide wifi or be the dog friendliest town in the south west, let’s work together and we can make things like this happen.”