Loughborough Town Centre Partnership
Loughborough is the largest town in Leicestershire outside the city of Leicester. The Borough Council works with the Loughborough Town Centre Partnership towards maintaining the town centre as a vibrant and prosperous retail and social venue. The Partnership runs its own web site for retail businesses in the town centre. This contains a directory of shops in the town centre and a programme of town centre events.
The Partnership is currently consulting Loughborough business leaders in order to identify how the creation of a Business Improvement District (BID) could improve trading conditions for their business in the town centre.
Business in the town centre have been invited to give their views on the additional projects and services that would help their bottom line and that they would be prepared to fund through the creation of a BID (Business Improvement District). Consultation is scheduled to continue throughout 2010 with a ballot on the Loughborough BID proposal likely to be held in March 2011. Further details can be found at www.bidloughborough.co.uk. The project manager for the Loughborough BID consultation can be contacted by email or by telephone on 01509 634 534. Further details on over 100 existing UK BIDs can also be found at www.ukbids.org
The Markets
The markets have been part of the Loughborough scene for 900 years. They are operated and administered by the Council's Markets & Fairs Service. Prospective traders wishing to attend any of the Council’s markets should call or e-mail the markets office for information and updates on stall availability. Budding new market traders may get useful advice on the law, tax and insurance from the National Market Traders Federation.
The main market days are Thursday and Saturday but there are also a monthly farmers market and a flea market every Friday plus occasional French, German and Italian markets.
Shepshed also has a market every Friday.