GO! Southampton Newsletter 2026

IS OUR BUSINESS 2026NEWS

Welcome to 2026

This is a time when we reflect on the previous year’s achievements and look ahead to the challenges which will test the resilience of businesses and opportunities that we hope will bring some prosperity.

On a brighter note, we have installed decorative lighting in Carlton Place, East Street and Oxford Street which can be modified to suit the season or celebration.

Safety remains a major issue for everyone in the city. Everyone should feel safe whilst at work, going home or enjoying an evening out. GO!’s appointed security provider, ASEL, has increased coverage of the BID area through improved patrol patterns by our excellent security team.

A safe and welcoming city is vital for the thousands of visitors who come to Southampton every week, many of whom are cruise passengers stopping here for a day.

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22 businesses transformed by beautiful scenes, in which you don’t expect Tinkerbell, a Gremlin and Jane Austen to be on your walk.

We are now in our ballot year, hoping to continue working with, and for you, for a third term. We will strive to continue improving the city centre experience, supporting all sectors with an initial focus on the hard-hit hospitality venues, attracting footfall into and around the area, and ultimately increase spend.

Best wishes,

Stephen Manion Executive Director

Southampton shines after Big City Clean

The Big City Clean is our annual deep-cleaning project that focuses on refreshing street furniture, pavements and high-footfall areas to help ensure Southampton looks its best for all. Taking place during the morning to avoid disruption, the 2025 programme covered Above Bar Street, Bedford Place, High Street, London Road and more.

First launched in 2022 with support from the Welcome Back Fund, the Big City Clean is now fully funded by GO! Southampton. It runs alongside the BID’s ongoing city cleaning services exclusive to levy payers, which include hot washing, graffiti removal, fly-tipping removal and safe disposal of sharps and needles.

In 2025 alone, our dedicated cleaning team have dealt with over 670 issues in the city centre to help maintain a welcoming and clean city for all.

New pilot targets root cause of business offenders

We are proud to be part-funding Southampton’s new Business Crime Navigator initiative – a year-long pilot that aims to rehabilitate prolific shoplifters, understand the causes of their behaviour and connect them with tailored support. The scheme in other cities has already shown positive results in reducing both offending and drug use, and aims to create a safer, more resilient environment for businesses and their staff in Southampton.

BID host Night-Time Economy Conference

Building on our quarterly Licensing Link meetings, we hosted our first ever Night-Time Economy Conference at the O2 Guildhall in January 2026.

The conference, aimed at hospitality and night-time economy venues in the city, gave businesses an opportunity to speak directly to industry experts and partners, share intelligence and gain practical support and insights to help grow.

During the afternoon, a number of speakers delivered talks and workshops, including Michael Kill, CEO of Night-Time Industries Association, who shared his views on the future of the industry and the current threat of business rates.

Keeping Southampton safe: SaBA & BCRP Awareness Week

In November we supported Safer Business Action (SaBA) Week — a national initiative led by the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC) to help tackle businessrelated crime.

Bringing together Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary, Southampton City Council and local partners, SaBA Week saw teams target high-harm offenders while working to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour in key areas of the city centre. The initiative led to 12 arrests and six dispersal orders for offences including shoplifting, breach of bail and sexual assault.

In March, GO! Southampton participated in the first National Business Crime Reduction Partnership (BCRP) Awareness Week — an opportunity to highlight the work of our Southampton Business Crime Partnership (SBCP) and the tools available to levy payers. If you encounter any incidents at your venue we encourage you to report them via DISC and contact our SBCP team so we can strengthen our shared response to crime and anti-social behaviour.

Our SBCP and security team continue to take a firm, proactive approach to tackling anti-social behaviour and business crime across the city centre. Over the course of the year, we’ve achieved:

NIGHT-TIME ECONOMY active exclusions in place bans issued warnings issued 67 46 49 worth of stock recovered incidents processed on DISC active exclusions in place 11 1,636 £59K

DAYTIME ECONOMY

Bear on the Square: Paddington finds a new home

Our popular Paddington Bear bench has found a new home in Guildhall Square, surrounded by beautiful plants and flowers installed by The Garden Society. Sitting proudly in the Cultural Quarter, we hope Paddington will increase footfall to the area offering visitors, families and local residents a welcoming spot to pause and enjoy the space.

Southampton students bring art to Mayflower Park

Last summer, two students from Southampton Solent University were commissioned to transform seven concrete bollards in Mayflower Park into vibrant artwork inspired by the city’s maritime links and Old Town. Not only did the project brighten up a popular public space but also offered valuable real-world creative experience for the students, supporting emerging local talent and strengthening collaboration between the BID and the University.

Raising awareness for HIV & AIDS

We partnered with Southampton Pride and John Hansard Gallery to support an open art call, celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community and highlighting the ongoing impact of HIV.

The commission was awarded to Illustrator Emily Foster for her powerful piece, Fight AIDS Not Gays. Their art, now on the window of John Hansard Gallery, explores themes of research and diagnosis, protest and the continued push to improve quality of life for those living with HIV.

Southampton Saints win Tourism Superstar Award 2025

We are so proud that our cruise port volunteers, the Southampton Saints, were crowned VisitEngland’s Tourism Superstar 2025!

Launched in partnership with ABP Southampton, the volunteer programme aims to enhance the welcome for cruise passengers arriving in the city. Since its launch in 2024, the small but mighty team of 14 have greeted more than 8,000 visitors offering directions, local insights and personalised recommendations to help people discover Southampton’s attractions, shops and hospitality venues.

Enhancing the cruise passenger welcome

With funding from the BID, God’s House Tower opened its doors on several cruise ship days, offering visitors an engaging first stop as they begin their time in Southampton. Positioned outside GHT with one of our welcome carts, the Southampton Saints provided leaflets and friendly guidance to help visitors confidently explore the city.

In addition to our volunteers, we are building relationships with city partners to improve the welcome and information available to all visitors at key entry points. This includes:

• New information leaflet stands, which are currently at Bluestar, Burlington House, God’s House Tower and Novotel

• Better signage and new flags at Southampton Airport, developing the connection between plane to city

• Providing printed materials such as visitor maps, event posters and business leaflets to hotels, universities, student halls and other venues across the city

Christmas in the City

BID area shines bright with new year-round lighting

Putting

Ahead of the Christmas period we invested additional funding to install lighting across the BID area. This includes:

• Colour-changing wraps on lamp columns throughout Bedford Place, High Street, London Road and Commercial Road areas

• A bespoke location sign in Carlton Place

• Walk-through festive bauble in Carlton Place

• A bespoke location sign and festoon lighting across Oxford Street

• Festoon lighting across East Street

This lighting has colour-changing features that can be used year-round with additional festive features being added at Christmas.

Southampton on the map this Christmas

We’ve just wrapped up our Christmas in the city campaign which showcased Southampton as an exciting visitor destination for all. We promoted festive events, food & drink, late-night shopping, experiences and more across our Visit Southampton digital channels and out-of-home advertising, including information towers and digital screens. We focused content on themed pages, blogs and itineraries which performed well across the new Visit website. The Christmas guide was seen by residents, cruise passengers, students and visitors and featured 126 levy payers including some exclusive offers. The campaign provided a valuable opportunity for businesses to reach both local audiences and visitors planning their festive activities.

Snow Windows Trail returns to the city centre

Spanning from London Road to the Hanover Buildings, 22 BID members took part in our Snow Windows trail, each featuring hand-crafted winter scenes inspired by local landmarks, wildlife and festive characters. Visitors could pick up free trail maps from hubs across the city, follow the two themed routes and discover unique discounts and giveaways from participating businesses. The trail encouraged people to explore a wide area of the BID, increasing footfall and awareness.

25,000 guides printed and delivered across the city

45,320 views across the Christmas campaign pages

9 festive themed influencer/press trips

11,720

guides and trail maps delivered to 32 primary schools

225

BID members promoted during the festive period

trail prizes given away 1,208

715,944 reach across Visit Southampton and Your Southampton socials (paid & organic)

377 groups took part in the trail

225 offer redemptions

Visit Southampton relaunches new and improved website

Ahead of the busy summer period, visitsouthampton.co.uk received a full redesign making it easier to discover the city’s attractions, events and local businesses. The new site allows users to build personalised trip plans, access special deals and navigate the city centre with improved search and map features. Cruise passengers now have a dedicated hub, while businesses and event organisers can update their listings quickly and efficiently through the new Extranet portal.

The website was developed in partnership with Southampton City Council, Southampton Forward and GO! Southampton. The switch to the new website with Simpleview, global leaders in destination marketing websites, was funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. Ongoing maintenance and fees will be covered by GO! Southampton. We are so proud of the new website and the opportunities it can bring to strengthen the

city’s national and international profile, encourage more visitors to explore Southampton, and support local businesses.

To find out how you can make the most of the website, as a free marketing tool for your business, email marketing@gosouthampton.co.uk since the relaunch in July

Southampton business listing

Delicious deals tempt food lovers into the city

In March, our Foodie Fortnight campaign showcased the variety and quality of Southampton’s hospitality sector, from well-known chains to high street independents.

Participants enjoyed 30 offers including lunch deals, set menus and drink-and-dine promotions encouraging exploration of new venues while supporting local venues.

10,000 leaflets door dropped to nine SO postcodes

30 offers across 28 participating venues

Over 600 offer redemptions

From Old Town with love: celebrating Southampton’s heritage quarter

Our Love The Old Town campaign returned in September, celebrating the unique history, culture and independent businesses that make Southampton’s Old Town such a vibrant destination.

We promoted the campaign across our digital channels, via paid advertising and on the city centre digital screens. We also secured some positive PR through a number of influencer trips and an Old Town special on The So SO Show Podcast. Over 20,000 guides were distributed to residents and key city locations, helping people plan their trip to Old Town. Throughout the month, 20 offers from 16 businesses were available, with over 100 redemptions.

Families hop to the city centre for eggciting spring trail

During the Easter holidays we hosted a free family trail, inviting people to help the Easter Bunny find his missing gardening tools. Participants followed the trail across Southampton’s Cultural Quarter and Commercial Road, in search of clues displayed on colourful posters in 12 BID member windows. Results include:

20,000 maps distributed

9,000 maps delivered to over 20 local schools

Over 668 groups took part

Over 929 prizes given away to children

BID members take centre stage on The So SO Show

We continued to partner with The So SO Show Podcast on a series of Visit Southampton special episodes. These allow BID members to be featured and reach new audiences as well as highlighting our campaigns throughout the year. In 2025, five special episodes aired, featuring a total of 52 members

Data and insights driving better decision making

average spend per visit

travelled by car/ van/motorcycle (+6% vs 2024) of respondents get their information from family & friends /word of mouth (+28% higher vs 2024) of respondents rated their overall enjoyment as either ‘good’ or ‘very good’ £46.14

(-£2.96 vs 2024) said their reason for visiting the city was a shopping trip (same as 2024) of visitors spend on average of 3 - 5 hours in the city centre

Results from our annual Consumer Research project, a face-to-face survey of over 450 people in the city, include: We partnered with a University of Southampton MSc graduate on a detailed analysis of footfall, spend and visitor behaviour across the BID area. Their findings provided fresh insight into city centre trends and highlighted practical opportunities to boost activity and engagement. If you would like to see the full findings from the graduate or Consumer Research projects, please email tom.winyard@gosouthampton.co.uk

Event sponsorship

In 2025, our Event Sponsorship scheme supported nine events, bringing in thousands of people across the year and provided unique opportunities for our BID members. Our sponsorship scheme is set to relaunch 1 April, to find out more

Business events

Over the last year we ran a number of events for our BID members as well as attended third-party events to help raise Southampton’s profile including:

A year of Jane Austen in Southampton

In 2025 GO! Southampton helped drive the city’s Jane Austen 250 campaign through our Visit Southampton channels. We also commissioned Blakeborough to work on the PR campaign which achieved an impressive 97 pieces of coverage, reaching over 12 million readers in print and 344 million online, with an approximate value of £920,000. We even featured in the #1 spot in the New York Times ‘52 places to go in 2025’!

It’s not just Jane Austen 250 that Blakeborough have been promoting. The team have been working with GO! Southampton throughout the year to help raise the profile of Southampton regionally and nationally, positioning the city as a must-visit destination. Targeting audiences such as family visitors, entertainment travellers and cruise passengers, Blakeborough delivered a consistent programme of work including pitching stories, issuing press releases and organising press trips for journalists and influencers to experience our BID member businesses and the city more widely.

In 2025 Blakeborough secured a combined print and online reach of over 435 million and an estimated media value of over £1.67 million. We’ve welcomed 32 journalists and influencers, resulting in 173 articles with coverage featuring many of our BID members.

Summer Sessions star studded lineup draws thousands of fans to Southampton

We worked closely with Cuffe and Taylor to help with promotion, engagement and business opportunities for the Summer Sessions concerts in 2025. We will continue working with organisers for its return to Guildhall Square in June and will be sharing key details with our members across our channels.

The 2026 lineup:

City Networking: Connecting businesses and building city partnerships

Held quarterly at different BID member venues in partnership with Unity 101, our City Networking events give levy payers the chance to connect, learn and collaborate with other professionals in the city.

Over 300 people have signed up to these events in 2025. Save the dates for 2026: 10 March, 9 June and 8 December. Our Spring Social & AGM at Boom Battle Bar is on 1 April too!

Supporting skills, confidence & growth

GO! Southampton’s Business Training Hub continues to give levy payers and their teams access to high-quality training on demand.

In partnership with SEEDL, businesses can tap into over 200 free online courses, covering everything from customer service and retail management to food hygiene, manual handling and mental health first aid.

In 2025, 27 new members enrolled onto the portal, signing up to 139 courses. That’s approximately 100 hours of free training delivered! All these members have said they would recommend using the hub.

Start your learning journey at gosouthampton.co.uk/training

Business training opportunities build stronger teams

We’ve delivered a wide range of training sessions and workshops across the year for our BID members to help upskill employees, keep them safe at work and stay up to date with the latest legislation. This has included Action Counter Terrorism training, Being Recorded in Public and Personal Safety workshop and Stop the Bleed training.

We also worked with partners on familiarisation trips for individuals and businesses to grow their knowledge of the city.

Looking ahead to 2026/2027

Businesses are facing tough times, with pressures from business rates, rising employment costs and high utility bills - which haven’t gone away.

We will be focusing our resources on identifying the needs of each sector and delivering relevant projects or supporting actions that will attract footfall, create a safer and welcoming city and encourage economic growth. These will be our aims over the next year and beyond.

Feeling safe from retail crime and anti-social behaviour in the city centre will still be our primary objective, from our highly visible security team on patrol, to use of technology and strengthened partnerships with the enforcement authorities.

A BID can move swiftly and respond to the calls and needs of our businesses. The hospitality and night-time economy industries have been battered by rising costs, dwindling income and changes in consumer attitudes towards drinking with venues closing at a worrying rate. Business working groups are being established to devise and deliver action plans which will include lobbying local and central government, helping businesses to grow and marketing the citywide offer.

The visitor experience is vital for economic activity. Whether a local resident or an international tourist, a place which is visually attractive and welcoming will be a place to which they want to go. As part of this enhanced experience, GO! will extend its installation of decorative lighting during the year.

To encourage the ever-growing number of cruise passengers to stay and explore, we will be adding to our Welcome to the City projects with more visitor information points at key locations and developing walking trails with city partners.

Times may be tough, but we will all be stronger working together.

Stephen Manion Executive Director

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Attract footfall into our retail and hospitality businesses Top five priorities for 2026/2027

Make the city centre a safer and cleaner place to work, visit and live

Attract more cruise passengers into the city centre

Move visitors around the BID area

Support the evening and night-time economy

Your chance to #BacktheBID

2026 is an important year for GO! Southampton as we go to ballot to secure our next five-year term. In late October/ November, you, our BID levy payers, have the opportunity to vote for our continuation as a business.

We are currently in our consultation phase and will be reaching out to help us understand your experience of the BID and how best we can support your business in the future.

KEY BALLOT MILESTONES

JAN TO MARCH Consultation

APRIL TO SEPTEMBER Business plan development SEPTEMBER Launch the business plan LATE OCTOBER Voting papers are sent

LATE NOVEMBER Deadline for votes DECEMBER RESULTS

MEET YOUR BID TEAM

Core services for your business

Cleaning

If your business experiences graffiti, fly-tipping or unwanted waste, our cleaning team is here to help. They provide hot washing, graffiti removal and general external cleaning support to keep your premises looking their best. To report a cleansing issue, simply get in touch by emailing cleaning@gosouthampton.co.uk.

Security

Our security team provides a visible, reassuring presence in the city centre, offering routine patrols, intelligence gathering and on-the-ground support. If your staff experience anti-social behaviour or theft, the team is on hand Monday–Thursday 10am–8pm, Friday–Saturday 9am–7pm, and Sunday 11am–5pm (with flexible start times where needed). Call 0738 9030 098 or reach them via the SBCP radio scheme.

DISC Access

Our DISC platform keeps businesses informed about offenders, live incidents and key alerts across the city centre. It also includes a range of crime-prevention resources and staff training materials to help keep your teams safe. To register for free, email sbcp@gosouthampton.co.uk.

Radio Scheme

Our radios connect businesses directly to Citywatch CCTV and our security team for fast, coordinated support. Radios can be hired for £5 + VAT per week. To arrange one, or to find out how a radio can help support your business email sbcp@gosouthampton.co.uk.

Ranger

Our Ranger, Debbi, helps keep the BID area in excellent condition. She monitors environmental issues, reports them to key partners, helps signpost visitors to their destination and visits businesses to share updates on the latest BID initiatives and upcoming opportunities. Debbi can be contacted at rangers@gosouthampton.co.uk.

Waste Recycling

We work with Southampton City Council to offer levy payers up to 50% off dry mixed recycling collections, helping reduce waste to landfill. On average, businesses save over £1,000 a year. You can sign up in just three easy steps by emailing recycling@gosouthampton.co.uk.

Business Cost-Reduction Service

Through our work with Place Support Partnership, your business can access free advice to find savings on energy, telecoms, water and merchant fees. Simply provide your recent bills for a confidential review and tailored recommendations to find out where your business can save money on core costs. Call 0333 0156 289 or email savings@gosouthampton.co.uk for more information.

Business Training Hub

In partnership with SEEDL, our business training hub gives you access to hundreds of free online courses and webinars to help upskill your team. Topics include manual handling, food hygiene, GDPR, Mental Health First Aid and many more. Staff can sign up to as many courses as they like at no cost. To create a free account head to gosouthampton.co.uk/training.

Marketing Support

Our marketing team promotes levy payer businesses through social media, newsletters and seasonal campaigns. GO! Southampton also manages the Visit Southampton website, where you can set up free business or event listings. Find out about the latest opportunities and how we can help spotlight your businesses at marketing@gosouthampton.co.uk.

Photography Service

You can access a free half-day professional photoshoot to help build a strong bank of high-quality images for your business. This is a great opportunity for consumer-facing venues looking to enhance their marketing with fresh, engaging photography. To find out more or to book your session, email Flo at flo.bevis@gosouthampton.co.uk.

PR Opportunities

We regularly welcome journalists and influencers to the city to help generate valuable regional and national coverage for Southampton. If your business would like to be considered for future hosting opportunities, please email flo.bevis@gosouthampton.co.uk.