"Visit Witney"

I agree entirely, and we need to think of the High Street as the shoe, and the shopping centres and the courts and the alleys as the lace-holes, and the lace is the visitors' path that weaves in and out and binds the whole shebang together.

Here are a couple of the Glasgow signs... I like the idea very much indeed, and I am sure we can find a design in keeping with Witney and West Oxfordshire...

Hawes... What an interesting comparison! See the picture of Hawes High Street... On the one hand Hawes is much, much smaller than Witney, but on the other hand astonishingly successful over the years at self-help... By all means let's have a look at Hawes, and maybe some other towns too? Any ideas, anyone?

Absolutely agree! Burford has 1400 residents and 68 shops! It's visitors that does that. And while some moan a little because of the number of galleries and gift shops... They also have a butchers, and a cheese shop, clothes shops, supermarket, restaurants... Any other (non-visitor) town of 1400 residents would be lucky to have a couple of shops and pubs!

I guess the thing to think about is... What do we look for when we go to a small interesting looking town? And see if there are any common threads...

An historical aside: Before we set up Cotswold Woollen Weavers in Filkins in 1982, we talked to Earlys about having the older part of their mill as a weaving centre, because they were on the rebound from Madame Tussauds deciding not to take the mill for a visitor centre. Their reason was that they did not think they could get to 350,000 visitors a year quickly enough. There was a very interesting report written at the time about 'Witney blanket tourism'. So far as Witney blankets, weaving today, and visitor attraction is concerned... Yes, I think it is possible... Something to think about for sure.

... And another thing: ghost signs... Old advertisements painted on buildings that have faded to 'ghosts'. A fascinating record of life in the past. Here is one above the building on the corner of Gloucester Place, taken some years ago...

Coach parking is something that should be under consideration, I agree... Does anyone have any ideas of where a coach park could best be situated?

It would be good to hear from those who have ideas about 'what makes a good market'... And photographs of examples of good practice etc.

This is a really splendid idea, and I urge you to look at https://www.witneychamber.org/diary/ which is another Chamber of Trade initiative... At the moment we welcome info from event-runners for us to post, but soon it will be possible to self-post.