For 7-8 months of the year Dartmouth is a busy, vibrant place with lots of people around and well-known and popular events including The Dart Music Festival, Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta and The Dartmouth Food Festival interspersed at nicely spaced-out intervals.
After the end of the October half term, in recent years and especially without the Candlelit Dartmouth festival, the town has ticked over and then become a more like a ghost town with very little in known events or activities until Easter the following year. Dartmouth businesses seem to have accepted this and with increasing pressures on businesses and lower footfall due to the economic crises, some businesses in the town centre are choosing to close entirely for the winter period, opening for shorter hours or closing for parts of the week. Consequently, visitors to the town during the winter may arrive to find places shut and streets deserted.
This situation is unsatisfactory for many reasons, 1) it creates a lengthy loss-making period for many businesses 2) it means staff may be stood down creating unemployment and financial hardship for some 3) as spring approaches staff have to be recruited (or re-recruited if the same staff are still available to work) and this is challenging with labour shortages across many sectors, especially since Brexit and the pandemic 4) businesses may be unable to retain quality staff with this continual seasonal cycle.
The Dartmouth and District Chamber of Commerce propose a solution to shorten the off-peak period by stimulating activities and events during the middle of the Winter. The Chamber has chosen December as the month to work with first, as there are a number of events already in existence, such as this year’s rekindling of Candlelit, Crab Pot Christmas Tree, town centre Christmas light switch on, a fledgling Christmas Market and New Year’s Eve fancy dress parties. These events can all be enhanced and additional activities promoted by the Chamber under the banner “Dartmouth in December”.
The aim is to produce a month-long calendar of events, culminating in Christmas and the formerly infamous New Year’s Eve Parties throughout the town to end with a NYE fireworks display at midnight on the 31st December.
We know it is only April, but we are putting out a call to arms for businesses throughout the district to consider holding an event, or series of events in December and to attach these events to what’s already happening to collectively build on these small beginnings. Thes events could be: late night shopping, restaurant or accommodation offers, bands, balls or many other events. The Chamber will coordinate the ‘Dartmouth in December’ Diary, so simply contact Mark Readman at The Crab in Dartmouth or email mark@dartmouthchamber.co.uk. Mark will work with you to make suggestions as to suitable dates or events and activities that complement each other to create a vibrant month of December and which will hopefully shorten our off-peak period considerably. OVER TO YOU!