Who and what is Love Oxted?

If you’re a local resident, you will probably have come across “Love Oxted” somewhere – whether it’s via @loveoxted Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, this website, local media, posters on shop windows, at the station or generally about the town…But while thousands of locals follow @LoveOxted on social media, you may not actually know what it is…

Love Oxted is the fluffy name for The Oxted Business Improvement District (BID). A BID, and there are many about the country, is a regulated, body with the sole aim of helping to develop a designated business area, and supporting the businesses within it. In Oxted’s case, this area is essentially Station Road East and Station Road West, with a wiggle down Amy Road to include Fennies and Oxted Trimming Co and Gresham Road to include the Health Centre and Library.

Many towns have a BID, and in the same way town sizes vary, so do BID sizes. The Oxted BID is a pretty small one, with around 160-170 members, consisting of all business with a rateable value in the BID area, including shops, restaurants, cafes and bars, salons, professional services (like lawyers and accountants) high street essentials and everything in-between!

These businesses pay for Love Oxted by way of a scaled annual levy, paid to Tandridge District Council every year, which is then passed on to Love Oxted to fund lots of different things within the town that are designed to support the businesses and bring footfall, and therefore business, into the town.   The team is currently just 3 Directors (most BIDS have 6-9), a Marketing Manager and BID Manager.

There are lots of different things, but generally speaking they’re separated into the main areas of:

1. Marketing & Events – website, social media, advertising and PR, Easter, Halloween and Christmas events and markets.
2. Attractive Town – planting, hanging baskets, Christmas lights, flags, decorations (for things like the Platinum Jubilee and Coronation), signage and wayfinding
3. Crime and ASB – supporting the businesses in tackling shoplifting and anti-social behaviour via Shop Alert WhatsApp Group, DISC reporting system, CCTV, liaison with the Police and the green “Shoplifter Alert” whistles!
4. Sustainability – working with the businesses on the road to Net Zero and recycling/zero waste
5. BID Management – all the legal / regulatory stuff and
6. Business Support – helping individual businesses with miscellaneous issues, launches, closures, staff vacancies and setting up their own social media/ digital marketing etc, plus internal communication with newsletters and updates about key activities and useful info.

A lot of our work is behind the scenes, but the things that Oxted residents see will really be in the categories of Marketing and Events and Attractive Town…

Over the last year, we’ve given our website, loveoxted.co.uk, a bit of an overhaul and we’re very happy that we have more than doubled our followers to Instagram and Facebook. We regularly post business profiles as well as sharing posts from our members’ social media and local community / charitable endeavours. We also promote other Oxted-based businesses when they are hosting events in our restaurants, bars and cafes or other spaces, or are part of our events or markets.

In 2023, were very happy to be voted “Best Place to Live in Surrey” by Muddy Stilettos; we ran a very successful Christmas Late Night Shopping event and Christmas Market as well as live music; ran a Fiver Fest campaign trial with Totally Locally; held really popular trails for Easter and Halloween as well as our Halloween window competition (won by Dessert Spot) and Spooky Saturday with fancy dress characters, face painting and entertainment. Our Oxted Photography Competition was a winner with some amazing photos submitted by local residents. 

We also launched our monthly What’s On posters – you’ll find them on social, shop windows, at the Station and on noticeboards.

Our planned summer market was sadly cancelled due to an extreme weather warning, but we will endeavour to try to find a weather-safe solution for future markets, a little tricky as Oxted is on a hill and is basically a wind-tunnel!

The lovelier Oxted is, the more people will want to come here to shop, eat and get their hair done!

In 2023, we worked with Oxted Station to smarten up the station tunnel entrance (and dressed it for Christmas); decked out the town for Coronation Week and worked with Oxted Rotary to get the Rotary Clock back on time!

We have also now installed our lovely stylised town maps at the Station, by Ashdown Travel and at Master Park, adopted and replanted the left-over “Welcome Back” (from lockdown) planters, installed potted trees at various points in the town and added to the Christmas lights with new ones on the first big tree by the Master Park war memorial.

You will shortly also see a lovely new Heritage Lamp on the Master Park Roundabout, which has been funded by Love Oxted.

Despite Oxted being a quiet semi-rural town, incidents of shoplifting, verbal or physical assaults on shop staff have been dramatically escalating. It is a national problem.  It’s fair to say that the most frequently targeted businesses – the 4 supermarkets, Boots and Factory Shop have had just about enough of the relentless onslaught. Sadly, much of the shoplifting is by local individuals who think it’s OK to essentially steal from their neighbours. It’s not. We would urge you please to report anything you hear or see to the police via 101 or online. The more evidence is collected, the more cases can be taken to prosecution.

CCTV is being installed throughout the town, led by Oxted Parish Council with support from Love Oxted and Limpsfield Parish Council and we are also working with the businesses, the Police, local schools and other parties to identify as many of the regular culprits as possible, whether they are local or from out of town. All the shops share CCTV images via our Shop Alert WhatsApp Group and our new secure security system, DISC, and we are building up quite the rogues gallery of local and non-local faces! We have also introduced our green Shoplifter Alert whistles. 

So that’s us! Please continue to support local Oxted business. Follow us and them on social media, share their posts, buy from them, give them great reviews and ultimately #shoplocal.

Thank you!

@loveoxted