The Market Town Welcome project will help the town and its tourism businesses to
develop a strong identity for Berwick. The work will be tailored to fit with the
emerging plans for investment and improvements from the Berwick Futures Project,
but will be co-ordinated by a distinct Leadership Group. This group, which has been
convened specially for the project, will be co-ordinated by Berwick Borough Council,
and will include representatives from the Berwick Development Trust, the local tourism
association, Berwick Cittaslow and Slow Food, Heritage groups and local tourism
businesses.
Once the plans are developed, the Leadership Group will continue to meet to implement
projects and to ensure that the wider Vision for Berwick takes account of the Market
Town Welcome plan.
We hope that this website will develop as an online community during the course
of the project. Feel free to use the discussion forum to give us your thoughts.
Post your digital photos on the site. Show us what you like or dislike about Berwick.
What would you show visitors? What would you steer them away from? What makes you
proud of your town? Whether you have a full professional kit or a mobile phone,
we want to see your images.
Please feel free to comment on any aspect of the project in Berwick:
Improvements
04 February 2008
My immediate response to the question of how can we improve our visitors' experience and attract more to Berwick, and bearing in mind what my guests tell me, is as follows;- more decent public toilets, it doesn't pay to get caught short in Berwick; improve the facades of the buildings in Marygate and ensure that the rooms above the shops are converted to living accommodation and not left idle and scruffy as they are at present; rescue the cinema for use as a cinema [perhaps three screens]and conference facilities; improve the offering at the Maltings to provide more drama, opera, ballet and classical music [or use the cinema for this as well as films] also improve the horribly uncomfortable seats; make more use of the Quayside area with its fantastic views, it needs a restaurant/bistro, perhaps a museum of whaling, or fishing or even of the River Tweed, a regular flea market would be good as well; a decent park-and-ride scheme that would cover Parade, Hide Hill, Old Bridge, Tweedmouth, lifeboat station, Spittal Prom and the leisure centre, this would allow visitors to enjoy the whole town without worrying about parking or clogging the street while they find their way about; more emphasis in advertising on sport experiences available, ie cycling, fishing, horseriding, swimming, a geology trail along our very interesting coast; the development of Spittal Point as a hotel complex with some shops, a decent restaurant and a pub that serves food. These are just some of the things that have come up in conversations with my visitors, they are on the whole a pretty active lot and enjoy the area enormously but quite often think of the town itself as an afterthought, some don't even visit it, preferring to go to Alnwick or Edinburgh etc. It must surely be one of the most beautiful seaside towns in the country and we should celebrate that. It would be a great achievement to get visitors to spend say half of their week's stay in the town itself with enough to occupy them here. I am glad that at last these matters are being aired.
Brenda Crowcroft [self-catering cottage at Spittal]
How would a visitor view Berwick?
30 January 2008
We asked people from Berwick attending the Market Town Welcome event what they thought are the positive and negative aspects of the town from a visitor perspective - do you agree with them?
Positives
- sea/coast
- parking
- town centre map
- wildlife
- holiday guide
- small independent shops
- friendly staff in shops
- friendly residents
- heritage/built environment
- history - real border town
- range/variety of events
- strategic position - rail
- accessibility
- citta slow/slow food initiatives
- essential guide NNTA
- Tweed River
- Accommodation
Negatives
- parking
- orientation/signage
- some buildings in poor condition
- lack of evening economy
- winter closures
- lack of promotion
- lack of communication
- update town centre map
Do you agree with their opinion? Post your messages here!
Alison Caffyn
What's Good About Berwick?
25 January 2008
What makes Berwick a great place to live, work or play?
What would you show to visitors, or what would you hide?
How could things be improved?
Tell us what you think!
Nick Miller