Case Study: Farnham, Surrey

Farnham itself is a medium sized market town on the western edge of both Surrey and the Surrey Hills. Farnham’s particular tourism offer is based around its excellent shopping, historic Georgian buildings, and its many creative institutions.

The rural area around Farnham is characterised by small villages, rolling landscape and many varied attractions.

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Need for the project

Despite its strengths Farnham is only really known for its town centre attractions, the vast majority of visitors are unaware what lies within a few miles of the town itself. In addition the area does not have a cohesive tourism brand, strategy or any kind of forum. As such the rural businesses are not receiving fair share of the benefit derived from tourism, and the entire tourism offer is fragmented and based on the reputation of the larger attractions.

A further complication has been the recent move by Waverley Borough Council who decided to close the Farnham Tourism Information Centre at the end of March 2006. This now leaves the entire area with no central information provision for visitors, on top of this Surrey County Council has recently made the decision not to renew the recently vacated county tourism officer position.

Planning the Project

Farnham as the focal hub of the area undertook the Countryside Agency’s Market Town’s Healthcheck in 2004. One of the major themes that returned form the consultation was that more needs to be done to safeguard the future vibrancy of the town and area. There was also a general realisation that tourism and visitor input is a realistic path to rejuvenate the area, but that a concerted “cluster” approach is needed in order to develop tourism sustainably and ensure it makes a valuable contribution across the whole area.

This initiative planned to provide the key infrastructure, tourist information, interpretation and promotion in order to allow the rural business to become part of a holistic Farnham and area product.

In order to take projects forward a local partnership was formed, comprising representatives from; Farnham Town Council, Farnham Chamber of Commerce, local businesses, and the University College for the Creative Arts.

Early in 2005, Hidden Britain approached Farnham Town Council to explain how they could assist in achieving the tourism objectives of the Healthcheck.

Research was gathered through a tourism product audit and using this as a base two stakeholder workshops were held in August 2005 which were well attended by both tourism businesses and local organisations. These sessions highlighted the key issues and also were an informal brainstorm for ideas and concepts to take forward.

From this data and feedback the group developed an action plan of tourism projects. With the advice and support of the Project Development Officer from Hidden Britain, they were able to turn this action plan into achievable objectives by securing funding.

In April of 2006 Defra kindly agreed a grant of £14000 to Farnham Town Council for undertaking the project.

Project Outputs :

A new brand and logo for the town and area

A Farnham in and around leaflet

New maps for the town and area

A redesigned website at www.farnham.gov.uk

A Farnham Area Tourism Forum (visit www.farnhamvisitorsforum.org.uk)

Implementing the Project

Tourism South East was commissioned to undertake the full visitor survey, as no survey had been done in the Farnham area since 1998. The final results were delivered in November 2006. The project group worked on the questionnaire to ensure it was tailored to Farnham and would provide useful data for future work.

The website was redeveloped by Farnham Town Council with input from the project group.

The project group worked with the University college for the creative arts to develop a brief for the design of the Farnham logo and brand which could be set for final year students as a live project. 21 students entered and the top ten exhibited their work to the judging panel at Farnham Castle. The judges who incorporated many of the tourism concerns of the area finally settled for Caroline Phillips design which is to become the new brand for Farnham, and be incorporated in all tourism developments in future.

New maps of the town and area were commissioned. These provided the basis of the new leaflet. The group provided an editorial function during the creation of the leaflet which was finalised in March 2007 and is now distributed right across the project area and further afield.

Spearheaded by Farnham Town Council, the existing visitor’s council has been re-constituted and reorganized into the Farnham Visitors Forum and is now taking an active part in pushing tourism forward with new ideas and initiatives for the town and area.

Local Benefits:

In terms of tourism the project has delivered Farnham a cohesive, holistic visitor package, which provides benefits to all the businesses of the area. In the absence of support for tourism in both the district and county councils, this initiative has the potential to allow Farnham to stand on its own two feet as a destination. This is particularly important for supporting the rural businesses outside of the town itself and by including them makes Farnham a more enticing destination.

As in all tourism projects the benefits from this will in main be to the local businesses by increasing visitor spend, however the community of the area as a whole will profit through the boost this will give to the local economy.

The formation of the forum and the work with the UCCA students on developing the new logo have provided platforms to bring together many groups within the community and has inspired a new sense of purpose and cooperation. Many of those involved have gained new skills and confidence, particularly the students who participated.

In delivering this project, a good cross-section of the community has been involved thereby ensuring this project has really been driven at a local level.