Helping the high streets of Hull & East Yorkshire to thrive through practical and tailored support for business owners.
The High Streets Business Support Programme is now closed. It ran as a pilot from January to March 2026. The programme offered 1-2-1 advice, mystery shopper visits, and webinars covering a range of high street related topics. We have retained this webpage as a record of the support available.
The Growth Hub may relaunch the programme in the 2026/27 financial year. Please check the Growth Hub website for future updates.
Running a business on the high street in 2026 is challenging. Business owners have to deal with generating more custom, managing staff, paying bills, navigating business regulations, and dealing with anti-social behaviour, all whilst trying to grow the business at the same time.
The High Streets Business Support Programme is here to help.
The programme offers free workshops, one-to-one advice, and hosted ‘high street stakeholder’ forums to discuss the challenges facing specific high streets. All of the information, advice and guidance provided is specifically tailored for high street business owners – i.e. simple, practical steps that businesses can put into action straight away.
What Was Available?
Specialist workshops were available to attend either in-person or online. A full list of workshop sessions is listed below. The topics covered were as follows:
- Customer Service Excellence
- Visual Merchandising & Sales Conversion
- Seasonal Trading, Flow & Operational Readiness
- Anti-Shoplifting & De-escalation skills
- High Street Marketing for Leisure, Retail & Hospitality firms
- High Street Businesses Online – Local Search, Google & First Impressions
- High Street Businesses Online – Content, Retention & Sustainable Growth
Targeted Support – Four Pilot High Streets
The Programme also operated as a pilot to better understand the type of advice and support that high street businesses need. In order to do this, the Programme worked with businesses on four ‘target high street’ areas that received enhanced support. These four target high streets were:
- Chanterlands Avenue, Hull
- Beverley Road (Stepney District), Hull
- Town Centre, Hessle
- High Street, Pocklington
This targeted support consisted of:
- Up to four hours per business of one-to-one consultation with a retail and hospitality expert. This can include a ‘mystery shopper’ visit and follow-up feedback and advice
- Hosted stakeholder engagement forums, where the challenges and opportunities facing each target high street can be identified and discussed.
Who it was for
Micro, Small and Medium (SME) sized high street businesses across Hull & East Yorkshire:
- Shops and retailers
- Cafes, pubs, restaurants and hospitality venues
- Service providers with a physical premises (e.g. estate agents or veterinary practices)
- Market traders (either permanent indoor market traders or ‘pop up’ markets)
To be eligible to access the programme, a business must have had a physical place of business. The programme was not able to support online retailers that do not operate a physical store or market stall.
Any high street business in Hull & East Yorkshire that met the above criteria could access the workshop programme.
To access the Targeted Support, a business must have operated in one of the target high street areas: Chanterlands Avenue, Hull; Beverley Road (Stepney district), Hull; Hessle Town Centre; and the High Street, Pocklington).
Workshops Offered
The following workshops were offered.
Merchandising & Customer Service Excellence on the High Street – Turning Footfall into Spend & Repeat Business
- 2.00pm – 4.30pm Tuesday 10th March (Online)
Seasonal Trading, Flow & Operational Readiness
- 10.30am – 12.00pm Wednesday 11th March 2026 (Online)
High Street Marketing for Leisure, Retail & Hospitality firms
- 10.30am – 12.00pm Thursday 26th February (Online)
- 9.30am – 12.00pm Tuesday 24th March (Online)
High Street Businesses Online – Local Search, Google & First Impressions
- 1.00pm – 2.00pm Tuesday 24th February (Online)
- 5.30pm – 6.30pm Thursday 12th March (Online)
High Street Businesses Online – Content, Retention & Sustainable Growth
- 1.00pm – 2.00pm Monday 2nd March (Online)
- 5.30pm – 6.30pm Monday 16th March (Online)
Contact Us
Should you have any questions about the Programme, please contact us using the following details:
- Email: growthhub@hullandeastyorkshire.gov.uk