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06
Feb
Knaresborough Chamber bids for funds to set up town gift card scheme
Independent businesses in Knaresborough could be boosted by an innovative gift card scheme, if a £37,000 grant application is successful.
The pre-paid gift cards would be useable in participating independent businesses in the HG5 postcode area, but not in national chains, meaning people's money would be spent – and stay – in the local area.
Cards could be given as gifts, or as rewards in companies and schools.
Knaresborough & District Chamber applied for the grant from the York and North Yorkshire Mayor’s High Street Fund this week, but will only hear whether the application has been successful sometime in April.
If the money comes through, it will pay to set up the scheme which is based on Mastercard technology.
The cards are made by a company called Miconex, which produces town and city gift cards for almost 100 communities around the UK, from Shetland to the Isle of Wight, including Harrogate and York.
The company would operate the Knaresborough scheme for the first two years, after which Knaresborough Chamber would take it over.
The gift card scheme would operate across the HG5 postcode area.
Paul Forster, who volunteers for community benefit society Knaresborough Connectors and submitted the funding bid on behalf of the chamber, said he was hopeful the application would be successful.
He said:
The gift card scheme has long-term, scalable benefits and affects a lot of businesses in a positive way. Lots of towns and cities are already running these schemes very successfully, and I think we can do it too.
As an example of a successful gift card scheme run by the same company, he cited the case of Enniskillen in Northern Ireland. That scheme was started in 2017 and has since clocked up more than £1 million in sales.
But the majority of shoppers have actually spent more when using their card than the pre-paid amount, typically by about 65%. So, the true impact of the scheme in that town is actually closer to £1.65 million.
Mr Forster added:
There are about 90 independent businesses in Knaresborough. I’ve no idea how many of them would sign up, but I’d hope all of them would, because it would benefit everyone.
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