End of the road for Visit Banbury after a job well done

Visit Banbury was an idea developed by Tim Tarby-Donald to promote the town and to encourage people to develop and support new initiatives to make it a better place to live.

Its positive nature quickly gathered momentum and it developed into a social enterprise known as Visit Banbury Community Interest Company to take a range of initiatives forward.

But last week it announced on its website that the current directors of the volunteer-led organisation – Mr Tarby-Donald, Paddy Patterson, Tanya Collins, Kirsty Leahy and Steve Gold - had decided it would be wound up within the next few months and its community-based activities would stop immediately.

The original Visit Banbury dates back to April 2014 and officially launched in February 2015 at its Banbury Positivity Summit.

The CIC’s statement issued last week said: “That event set the tone for the organisation’s activities to date, promoting everything positive about Banbury, organising activities and events within the town, connecting and bringing people together, collaborating as a partner with a range of groups and working to bring business and local community together to create social action, to improve life for those in the town and the immediate area around Banbury.

“In addition, the CIC has worked to promote kindness in the town, most notably launching their ‘Banbury Circle of Kindness’ during the first lockdown to bring kind donors together with businesses who needed extra income, in order to provide items for recipients who were helping Banbury residents or were local people supported by local charities, plus lots of random acts of kindness for Banbury people.”

The statement reflected on some of the many highlights, including the recent collection of winter coats for people in need, the work with Age Friendly Banbury and Brighter Futures in Banbury, plus the Night Market organised with Banbury Presents in 2015.

Mr Tarby-Donald added: “We truly hope we have been a positive force for good in the town and that we have shown that even with busy lives, normal people can have a positive impact on our home towns.”

In a further statement to the Banbury Guardian about the decision to close, he said they felt it was the right time to end on a high: “We felt that to a certain extent ‘our volunteer work is done’ now that paid organisations like Banbury BID exist and far more organisations across Oxfordshire are giving more attention and support to Banbury – Oxfordshire Community Foundation, Oxfordshire Youth, Orinoco and Oxford United in the Community all focusing resources locally where they did not when we started up, to name but a few - and organisations such as Banbury CAG / the Bridge Street Community Garden and Parents Talking Asperger’s are thriving and doing brilliant work in the community.

“Finally, material things like the new Castle Quay Waterside development coming to fruition mean that there is less of a need for us to continue to promote Banbury’s potential sometime in the future, as it is starting to be realised now.”