Rewatch the 'Reviving Our Town & City Centres' conference
Ipswich Central and All About Ipswich, the Business Improvement District (BID) and Destination Management Organisation (DMO) for Suffolk’s county town, have confirmed that plans to transform Ipswich into the UK’s first ‘connected town’ have now reached an audience of over 3.5 million within the first month.
In addition, attendance and viewings of this week’s special conference to launch the proposal exceeds 1500 people and continues to grow. The concept has reached all corners of the globe including America, France, Norway, Ireland, Hong Kong, Italy, Singapore and Australia where attendees woke up at 5.30 am to hear a range of experts lining up to support Ipswich’s plans. These include Ojay McDonald, Chief Executive of the Association of Town and City Management who opened by saying “I’m a fan of Ipswich’s vision of a ‘connected town’. It is the way forward”. He later told the audience that he would struggle to count “on the fingers of both hands” towns and cities in the UK that had the boldness of vision that Ipswich had put forward.
Commenting upon the responses, the Chair of Ipswich Central, Terry Baxter said:
“We have been absolutely overwhelmed by the interest and feedback, particularly from our local business members who have responded extremely positively and enthusiastically. We are grateful to our Vision partners for working with us to develop the proposals and we must now all be mindful of the very clear message that we have been given – get on with it and make it happen.”
Due to the overwhelming interest and in response to numerous requests, the organisations have decided to release a full recording of the event on YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/Q1L8nD55XR8. It will only be available for the next 7-days.
Read more about Ipswich’s ‘Connected Town’ concept:
www.ipswichcentral.com/news-and-events/vision2021
