shop eat play | live
Worcester Wins National Accolade for Community Response to February Flooding
The City of Worcester has been awarded a national prize for partnership work and achievement at the Association of Town and City Management (ATCM) Awards, held in Dundee on Thursday, June 26th. The city faced catastrophic flooding during February 2014, and rapidly coordinated and promoted an Open4Business campaign that combatted potential negative media stories and prevented loss of trade. The campaign made great use of social media to highlight that despite the difficulties, the community was pulling together and the city was very much still Open4Business.
Alexander Nicoll, ATCM Chairman said “It is a first to award the ATCM Chairman’s Prize to a place rather than a person but I have no hesitation in doing so this year. The City of Worcester as a whole community responded with vigour and in a very co-ordinated way to the storms and terrible flooding of last winter.
The city’s Open4Business campaign was supported by all strands of the local community and underlined what human ingenuity, planning and project co-ordination can achieve even in the face of the scale of natural disaster faced by the people of Worcester during the floods.
Many other communities responded valiantly to what they faced but I am delighted to award the 2014 ATCM Chairman’s Prize to, in effect, everyone who lives and works in Worcester to acknowledge their substantial response during the floods to keep Worcester Open4Business.”
Head of Worcester Business Improvement District (BID) who led the campaign which made full use of social media, Adrian Field added “We are delighted that Worcester has been acknowledged for its efforts in minimising the devastating impact of the floods. We had great support from businesses to spread our message and the key stakeholders played a fantastic role in aiding awareness of the fact that traders were well and truly open both during and straight after the floods”
The official presentation of the award will be taking place at Worcestershire County Cricket Club at 1.30pm on Monday, June 30th.
Well done, Worcester! City wins award for #Open4Business campaign that defied the floods (Worcester News), 27/06/2014
Prize presentation at Worcestershire County Cricket Club with Worcester BID Chairman Nicki Williams.
Worcester BID’s Adrian Field & Nadja von Dahlen collecting the ATCM Chairman’s Award from Alexander Nicolls
