This Is Basingstoke

Posted on 18. May, 2009 by Craig Killick in Basingstoke

Last week I was invited to join a scheme called Basingstoke Ambassadors. The group is made up of influential business people, dignitaries and there were a couple of high profile sports people too. The aim: To Talk Up Basingstoke.*

It’s an interesting incentive, as is the intention of Destination Basingstoke, the organisation looking to promote the town and I am actually quite proud to be involved.

My Basingstoke

Having lived in Basingstoke all my life I am now raising a family and running a business here and have seen the town develop into something very different from my childhood of the 70s and 80s. The thing that gets my goat, and why I am keen to actively promote Basingstoke is that the town that is often derided is the Basingstoke of my childhood, not the one I live in now 30 years later. When I look at this video of Basingstoke town centre in the sixties, I understand why. But, it’s not the town I live in in 2009. What if we did the same for Milton Keynes, Manchester, some parts of London, or even Dubai?

Image Problem

Of course, Basingstoke is not alone. I could quite easily sneer at other towns with the same image problem, such as Crawley and Slough, but to be fair, I’ve never visited either, so I can’t comment. But, having been involved with the Destination Basingstoke project earlier in the year, I was actually amazed at some of the statistics available and astonished that we still have this image problem. For business, living and leisure, the marketing proposition for Basingstoke is actually quite compelling.

Of course, being that much older now, I can also see the bigger picture. The job situation, economic stability, healthcare, etc. Stuff I would take for granted ten years ago, but not now with a business and young family.

Every town has it’s problems and some of them may even be irreversible and like all marketing propositions, towns should perhaps be trying a little bit harder to differentiate themselves, and this is why I was attracted to this project. On a personal note, I could cite selfish reasons for my family and business but  I would also suggest element of civic pride (for want of a better phrase).

Local Pride

I have a friend in a Welsh town where young men would fight over local pride, with generations of family growing up in the area. Basingstoke doesn’t have that being an London overspill town of the 1960s. Many people I speak to who lived in the area before that time, aren’t impressed with the ‘progress’ and to be fair, some earlier planning in the seventies wasn’t that clever. And, perhaps newer residents are just apathetic.

But, there is somewhat of a necessity for civic pride in this new millennium. Localisation of trade, especially for small businesses, versus global  competition – we need to be clever and compete on different terms than 100 years ago for business and residents. Why Basingstoke when I have all this other choice?

Summary

It’s early days for this project and I know that it will take time – probably a lot of time – but it is doable. What’s more, I have found that there are more crazy people like me who feel that they want to promote the town they live in – even people born elsewhere. I commend these people, no matter how much piss taking commences because of it,however small their contribution, because they will be the ones to shape this town and leave some sort of legacy.

I know for me, I’d much rather build on my own identity as a Basingstoke citizen, than to pretend otherwise. As Ian Brown used to say:

“It’s not where you are from, it’s where you’re at.”

Picture Credit: Fred Fish

*NB. I am involved with Destination Basingstoke, the marketing organisation behind the Basingstoke Ambassadors scheme. This in turn had followed a two year relationship with the organistiona, which recently involved the commercial delivery of the website by The Escape (my day job) as a precursor to my involvement.

Tags: Basingstoke