New director of Inverness BID Lorraine Bremner McBride is hoping to help city centre businesses
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Helping city centre firms is one of the top priorities for the newest business leader in Inverness.
Lorraine Bremner McBride was unveiled as the new director of Inverness BID earlier this week.
Speaking with the Inverness Courier she said that she would be looking at ways BID could support them to reduce overheads.
She added: “There are opportunities that may not be available to individual businesses but can be sourced collectively which is one of the advantages of the BID model.”
Mrs Bremner McBride said she aimed to consult local businesses and ask them what they wanted – either by meeting face-to-face or circulating questionnaires at events and business focus groups in the coming weeks.
She said: “As custodians of the city centre this generation of businesses have a real opportunity to collectively and collaboratively via BID determine how they would like the city centre to evolve.
“We all want our city centre to be the best it can be. So finding out what our members want and using this to shape my actions is my number one priority.
“I have been amazed at the number of initiatives that our award winning Inverness BID already provides and undertakes exceptionally well.
“This includes providing the coach ambassador service for visitors who arrive in the city which, by the end of the season, will be circa 120,000 people.
“We further facilitate the provision of the floral displays, manage seagull control, oversee Safe Inverness, the Task Team and much more.
“Building on our existing programme and identifying additional funding opportunities to expand our programme based on the feedback from our members and stakeholders is my number one focus.”
The 46-year-old, who was born in the city, spent 13 years working in a number of roles at the Inverness, Badenoch and Strathspey Citizens Advice as an employment and equality rights specialist adviser and most recently the business development manager.
She said this experience would help her in her new role and added: “In the third sector due to resources being limited and budgets being tight it is essential that projects and initiatives are extremely well managed and that resources are effectively deployed and these principles that will stand me in good stead with BID.
“The ability to innovate and optimise and develop opportunities is what I do best or to sum it up being able to ‘find a way or make one’.
“Being inclusive, approachable, accountable, accessible, and effective are further skills that my previous roles will allow me to bring to this post.
“I have up to date knowledge of the many requirements of running a business given I advised on these very issues and as a local person I have a real passion for the city centre and I see my role as being one of service and it being my job to promote the city centre, our city centre businesses and the wider team.”
Mrs Bremner McBride said she has already received a very warm welcome from the BID members she has spoken to and had received many good wishes also from the wider community.
