Review of 2025!

We would like to wish all our followers, our businesses and community a very Happy New Year and hope that 2026 will be a positive, healthy, happy and prosperous year for all!

It’s important to reflect on how much good has been achieved during 2025, as we understand and acknowledge that town centres are changing away from traditional retail to more leisure, experience and service centred businesses. However, a town centre is not just about retail, it is about community, a sense of place and pride in our town, our long-standing businesses and those working hard everyday against the tide of online purchasing. We know everyone has choices – choice to shop online, visit other towns and cities for shopping or leisure, so we just wanted to remind everyone how much effort the Business Improvement District (BID) team have put into ensure there are activities, initiatives and campaigns to support the businesses who fund the BID and allow so many good things happen for Walton on Thames!

We hope for more success for our businesses and town centre in 2026!

REVIEW OF 2025

• Winner of the 2024 Best Dressed Window was Cacao Route Chocolatier
• 1st Valentine’s Bench was situated in High Street, War Memorial Garden for the community to enjoy
• We welcomed several new businesses to Walton, Including Three Sixty Gym, Cake Box, 99 Bikes, Greggs, Pizza Go Go, Origin Pilates, Ripples Bathrooms and Walton Nail Spa
• We supported businesses with our 1st ‘Totally Local’ Campaign in March, and ‘Independent Hospitality Week’ in May.
• We created several themed ‘business features’ across many sectors including tailoring, cycling, beer, mental health, sight, vegan foods and Yoga!
• Our continued focus on local businesses, so our community can get to know them more, saw features on Mooboo, Union Hair, Crafty Pots Cafe, Connect FMH Charity, Seymours and Martin Flashman Estate Agents, Le Petit Cafe and Harmony Nails.
• We delivered campaigns for our Walton Independents through regular advertising in Your Elmbridge Magazine and July’s UK Independents Weekend and Small Business Saturday in December.
• We secured, in the Elmbridge Borough Council 2025-26 Budget, 30 minutes FREE Parking everyday for all three town centre car parks! Thank you EBC.
• We hosted two NEW community events for 2025 – The Walton Fayre on High Street and The Flavours of Bridge Street, we also saw our largest number of businesses take part in the 2025 Duckathon raising funds for 1st Walton Sea Scouts and a slightly smaller Festival of Light event which kicked off the Festive Shopping and Fun season!
• Our Greening Activities really took off in 2025, with the planting of sustainable, hardy plants in the low level roadside beds on New Zealand Avenue outside Hoops – Pizza Express. In the late autumn, with many volunteers and support from both Ashley CofE primary school and Ashley Park School and the gardening team from Surrey Choices at Fernleigh Day Care Centre we planted over 7,000 spring daffodil bulbs in the verges around the town centre in New Zealand Avenue, War Memorial Garden, Ashley Road, Hepworth Way and the Riverside Gardens – we cannot wait to see them bloom in Spring 2026!
• We shingled and tidied the roadside area alongside Sainsbury’s and saw our planting of November 2024 really embed itself – there was lots of intense watering needed in our long hot summer and we were supported by many of the businesses on New Zealand Avenue and High Street to ensure all greening efforts were maximised.
• A project with Surrey County Council, to look to address the number of delivery vans and vehicles mounting the pavement alongside the eateries on New Zealand Avenue, which started as an idea back in 2023, came to fruition as they funded a ‘modular parklet’ which was a show garden at The RHS Hampton Court Garden Show in July and then installed as individual pieces on the pavement which bring seating, planting and colour to the this very popular and busy part of our town centre.
• We worked with The Riverhouse Barn for several ‘Film Festival’ showings in May 2025 some with funding support from Elmbridge BC Arts and Arts Partnership Surrey. We also had a unique event at The Everyman Cinema with an exclusive showing of Apple TV+ ‘Fountain of Youth’ for local Media, Music and Production students hosted by local Oscar Winning Film Composer Chris Benstead – who answered questions from the students and inspired them with his stories.
• Throughout the year we have been committed to tidying and cleaning our town centre, we had our 3rd annual deep clean of the pavements, we saw new bins installed by EBC and we undertook several litter picks with the support of Barclays Bank, WoTTA, 1st Walton Sea Scouts, F3 Mens’ Group and Elmbridge BC.
• We created and gave away both Love Walton Dog Bowls as part of International Dog Day and We Love Walton Tote Bags during our community event. It has been great to see the dog bowls in action in and outside businesses across town AND so many residents carrying our bright bags as they do their shopping in the town centre!
• We had the honour of celebrating one of Walton (and Hersham’s) most legendary stars, as Dame Julie Andrews turned 90 on 1st October 2025. We gave out a spoonful of sugar in the form of birthday cupcakes, we saw the Everyman host half a dozen screenings of the 60th anniversary re-make of the Sound of Music, RC Sherriff hosted a ‘silver sing-along’ session full of music related to Julie. The Walton Village made October ‘Julie Andrews’ themed free community cinema and we received a personalised letter of thanks and appreciation from Dame Julie herself, stating how ‘wonderful it felt for her home town to recognise her’.
• Our second ‘annual’ Walton BID Business Awards saw the categories extended and made more inclusive to represent every sector and the winners – as voted by our residents included: Babucci, Headmasters, James Neave Estate Agents, Zebra Boutique, Specsavers, The Princess Alice Hospice Shops, The Surrey Coffee Co., The Method Gym and The Walton Village, The Employee of the Year Award was independently reviewed and awarded to two very worthy winners Jenny Holmes of Rentstart and Thomasin Clarke of Bigmore Associates. Congratulations to ALL winners.
• As the year draws to a close we reflect on running 28 Kids Clubs (FREE) with over 350 attendees, enjoying story time, craft making, movies and biscuit decorating. We know that for every family who attend more than 75% go on to shop, eat or further dwell in the town centre – the main aim of work to attract families to enjoy what the town has to offer.
• We have continued significant partnership working with Surrey Police (Elmbridge Safer Neighbourhood Team) with detailed input from Borough Commander Thoday to support our Business Crime Partnership and act on both retail theft and anti-social behaviour. This has been mirrored by support and funding from Elmbridge Borough Council Community Safety and Crimestoppers, culminating in two visible events in The Heart Plaza for Safer Business Action Week and most recently the first deployment of the Surrey Police ‘Facial Recognition Van’ in Walton / North Surrey. Together, we continue to promote the need for businesses to report retail crime and ASB so we can document and create a historical database of incidents for future prosecutions.
• The BID Team continue to meet regularly with senior representatives of Elmbridge Borough Council and our local MP for their action on tackling landlords of long empty premises in our town centre, in particular to potential use of High Street Rental Auction powers. As a town centre we currently sit with 14, from a potential 195, empty units – that is 7.2% vacancy rate, compared to the UK National Average. Before the BID (Love Walton) existed the town had 40 empty units.
• We gained the funding from our Surrey County Councillor Ashley Tilling for the resurfacing of the slip road in New Zealand Avenue, making it safer for individuals to park and we hope in 2026 safe for us to host small street markets or events in this space.
• We continue to liaise with Surrey County Council for their Local Street Improvements Project which includes Bridge Street and surrounding areas, to ensure the voices of the businesses are heard and the improvements are suitable for both businesses, traffic, residents and visitors.
• Finally, as we close this review, we have to thank the businesses who have supported the BID Board, The BID Manager and the activities we have delivered, without their funding many (95%) of these activities would not have happened. So we are delighted that businesses voted in favour of continuing the Business Improvement District (Love Walton) for a further 5 years from 1st April 2026. You can read our business plan, which outlines the projects and priorities businesses have identified as important to continue to support our town here.

Thank you for reading!