North Laine Traders Association Newsletter 87

NEW North Laine Map!

On the windy wet evening of Tuesday 11th March over thirty traders and guests braved the elements to attend the 2008 NLTA AGM at Komedia.

The evening started off at 6.10 by Chair, Sharon Thomas welcoming everyone and Peter Stocker giving the secretary’s yearly review. Peter mentioned the successful launch of the 100% North Laine sustainable bag and the many other achievements over the last twelve months.

Peter also thanked our many partners including Brighton and Hove council, cllr Ian Davey, David Lepper M.P. the Brighton Business Forum, NLCA and all the North Laine street reps.

Soozie Campbell then gave a report on the BID, (business improvement district) which included Christmas lights, Unique Brighton website, various promotions and an idea for central cardboard recycling for city centre traders. The three BID representatives for North Laine are Andrew Fisher, Richard Calman and Gren Nation.

Treasurer David Hall then presented the 2007 treasurer’s report plus accounts and discussed membership levels and expenditure so far this year.

We then held elections of officers and Sharon Thomas was again elected as Chair, David Hall as treasurer and as Peter Stocker is moving those present voted to retain Peter as a paid co-ordinator for six months. Street reps were also elected.

There then followed a report on the North Laine website which has recorded over 276,000 individual hits since its launch. Quarterly results show strong growth, quarter 1. 2007 = 24,300 hits and quarter 1. 2008 over 56,000 hits. Brian Pedley also reported that he would be working on a member’s message board and has added Fire Assessment information to the members section. Brian was thanked for all his hard and effective work.

Any other business included the NLTA adopting Jubilee Street. Helen from MyHotel thanked us and reported that they will be opening on the 18th of March. City in Bloom have asked the NLTA to arrange a best commercial frontage competition and Lynette from Revamp asked about more maps/signs around North Laine, Councillor Davey offered to assist us.

Sharon thanked Colin Grainger for the use of Komedia and then introduced our guest speaker Jonathan Love from Business Link who talked and answered small business questions until the meeting finished at 7.30.

Full minutes and accounts are available online here as well as information on how to join the NLTA - here

North Laine lost a good friend when former head of planning for Brighton council, Ken Fines sadly died on Easter Monday. Ken created the North Laine as a conservation area in the mid seventies when it was under threat of mass demolition for a major road system. He realised that the area worked well in its small scale and probably set the seeds of the successful area we have become. Ken retired many years ago but has never ceased to take an interest in North Laine and has been very active challenging planning applications and producing a book, “a history of Brighton”.

NLTA Members
Members are reminded that they can advertise themselves and their special offers and events on their member’s page of the North Laine website. You can also provide news items of interest to other NL traders. The website is www.northlaine.co.uk

London Road
North Laine Cllr Keith Taylor held a non party-political meeting to discuss the St James Investments emerging proposals for London Road and consider alternative viewpoints and priorities for the area. Hopefully ideas from this meeting will be fed into the June council consultations.

Southern water are slowly working their way through North Laine and we know have provisional dates for the next six months. Kensington Gardens is now just about finished with Clancy Docwra working from 8 till 11am to cause as little disruption as possible..

Southern have agreed that the works in North Road will be probably the most difficult part to the mains renewal in our area and they will try to keep road closures to small sections. Information will be sent to affected roads.

100% North Laine Bags
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