Community
Community by oXo Creatives.
oXo works with businesses in Somerset, Surrey and South West London. This is what's happening there, and what it means for local businesses.
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Business improvement districts, explained: how a town's businesses vote to pay for their own high street
Some town centres are part paid for by their own businesses, through a partnership they vote for. Four rules decide who pays and who gets a say.
The Epsom & Ewell Business Awards: yes, you can nominate your own business
The Epsom & Ewell Business Awards let you nominate your own business, as long as it's based inside the borough.
Kingston First: what Kingston's businesses pay for their town centre, and what they get back
Every business in Kingston town centre pays into Kingston First, at 1.6% of the value its business rates are based on. Whether that pays off depends on what it uses.
Leatherhead's businesses voted to fund the town centre, but only a quarter of them took part
Leatherhead's town centre businesses now pay for a Duck Race, extra cleaning and more. Only a quarter of them voted, but every one of them pays.
Surbiton's town centre plan, and where it has got to
So far, Surbiton's town centre plan has given the town a mural on the railway bridge and a trial street market. The full strategy is still to come.
Business support in Somerset in 2026: the Growth Hub, the new hospitality grants and what else is open
For business support in Somerset, start with the Growth Hub: it's free, and most other routes lead back to it.
Business support in Surrey in 2026: what is open and what is not
Surrey's own grant fund is closed, but free advice and a grant for people who make things are still open to Surrey businesses.
East Surrey Council: what the change in April 2027 means for Epsom businesses
Epsom gets a new council on 1 April 2027. For most businesses in the town, very little changes day to day, beyond a few links and listings.
The Frome Independent, the Sunday market that fills Frome's high street
On the first Sunday from March to December, more than 250 traders fill Frome's high street, with music, street food and workshops, free to visit.
Shepton Mallet Sunday Market, once a month in the Market Place
Once a month from March to November, Shepton Mallet's Sunday market fills the Market Place with stalls, street food and music.
How a Somerset art gallery put Bruton on the map
Hauser and Wirth is why most people outside Somerset have heard of Bruton. What changed in the town after it opened cut both ways.
Bruton's farmers' market brings a Saturday crowd to the high street
Once a month, Bruton's farmers' market brings people to the high street on a Saturday when they wouldn't otherwise have come, and the shops nearby get them for nothing.
Bruton's high street shops, and the Instagram account they share
Bruton's high street shares one Instagram account, and it turns a street of small shops into one place a visitor can find and follow.
Castle Cary on Glastonbury weekend, with the crowds passing through
In a festival year, Glastonbury's crowds pour through Castle Cary's station and out to Worthy Farm. Very few of them stop in the town.
Castle Cary's Market House, and why the town kept it
Castle Cary kept its finest building for the town instead of selling it. It was the right call, and the town is still paying for it.
Castle Cary's Tuesday market, and the shops built around it
Every Tuesday morning, all year round, Castle Cary's street market sets up, and the shops around it get a crowd they did nothing to create.
How to choose which local networks are worth your time
Before you join another local business group, decide what you want from it, keep to one or two, and give each a trial with an end date.
How Epsom's businesses came together to fund their own high street
Epsom's town centre businesses voted in 2017 to pay towards their own high street, and a second vote keeps it going to 2028.
Derby Day: what one race meeting is worth to the rest of Epsom's businesses
The Derby crowd comes for the racing, so Epsom's shops see little of its money. What they do get is the easiest busy day of the year to plan for.
Epsom's markets, and who each one suits
Epsom has two weekly markets, a monthly farmers' market, a shopping centre and a food hall, all within a few minutes' walk, and each suits a different visitor.
How independent businesses compete with national chains online
A chain can outspend the independent down the road, but online it can't be specific, quick or local. That's where the independent wins.
Surbiton Business Community: a networking group that actually gets people in a room
Surbiton Business Community gets local independents into a room: a free meetup on the first Friday of every month, built to get past small talk.
What Surbiton's farmers' market does for the shops around it
Since 2009, Surbiton's farmers' market has filled Maple Road on the third Saturday of the month, and the shops around it can plan on it.
Trading a mile from Kingston: what that means for an independent in Surbiton
Kingston is only a mile away, but the Surbiton independents that do well don't try to compete with it at all.
Wincanton, the town that gave a national company its name
In 1925 a milk haulier took Wincanton's name. A century later the name is still on the lorries, though the company left the town long ago.
What a local business community actually does
In a good local business community, other businesses send you work, you hear the news first, and you club together on what none of you could afford alone.
The Wincanton shop with fans on every continent
A Wincanton shop sold nothing but Discworld, and it gave a small Somerset town fans on every continent. Its reputation outlived its premises.
Six signs that a town's businesses are pulling together
Some towns thrive and some struggle on the same rents. Six habits make the difference, and none of them is about how pretty the high street is.
Why local search matters more than it did five years ago
When you look up a local business now, the answer usually sits on the results page, pieced together from places the business may never have checked.
Wincanton's high street, and the case for keeping it independent
By one local group's count, ninety-five per cent of Wincanton's high street is independent. That's worth protecting, but goodwill alone won't fill a shop.
The South Somerset Circle, an introduction
After a run of posts about Wincanton and Bruton, an argument for the towns working together rather than measuring themselves against each other.
Was Bruton a media hype? Part two, social media
By 2017 a small Somerset town had more Facebook groups than it had pubs, and the tone of them was doing real work, for better and worse.
Responses to Wincanton against Bruton
The Wincanton piece got a bigger reaction than it deserved, and the most useful part of it was the list of businesses people told me I had missed.
Was Bruton a media hype? Part one, the locals
Two years after I reviewed the reviewers, I went back to see whether local opinion had settled, and whether the worry about house prices had turned out to be right.
Why Wincanton is the new Bruton
Written with a large pinch of salt in 2017, when my home town started to show signs of the same uplift its neighbour had been given credit for.
An interview with Truffles Brasserie
A conversation with Richard Sorapure about a career that went from Park Lane to marine geology and back to a kitchen at the bottom of Bruton High Street.
The Bruton Packhorse Fair 2015
The late May bank holiday fair, the dog show, and what the reaction to it said about the town.
Bruton. Media hype, or the real deal?
In 2015 the national press decided Bruton was the most fashionable town in the country. Locals were less sure. I grew up nearby, so I had an opinion.
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