OKEHAMPTON and District Chamber of Trade is aiming to 'get on, push hard' and make Okehampton as great as it can.

The rallying call comes as the chamber puts plans in place to help boost town businesses.

After town businesses voted against the proposed Okehampton Business Improvement District scheme last month, the chamber of trade held a meeting to look at what could be done to improve prospects for businesses in Okehampton.

One of the main elements of the BID was to ensure the Okehampton and District Chamber of Trade's town promotions manager role, currently carried out by Lisa Wadling, was funded for the next five years.

The chamber of trade is now appealing for donations from town businesses to help keep the scheme going in the long run.

Chamber of trade secretary Allenton Fisher said: 'One thing that came out of that meeting was the real desire of traders to keep the town manager position going.

'We are very keen to keep Lisa here promoting Okehampton and creating great events for the town. The position has been a real success so far, so long may that continue.

'We need at least £10,000 a year to pay for the role, and there is talk of some of Okehampton's bigger shops making contributions towards that.

'Waitrose have said they would consider a contribution towards it, as have Co-op, and we are discussing with other retailers too.'

The organisation has launched a new sticker scheme, with traders who are part of the chamber able to put up these stickers in their windows and show their link to the organisation.

It is hoped the scheme will encourage more traders to join the chamber and get involved with its projects.

Mr Fisher said he was confident that the chamber's membership could grow further, and encouraged businesses not part of the organisation to get involved.

He said: 'Our biggest thing is we get more people active in the chamber and active in what we do, to keep things like the Edwardian Evening, the Christmas lights and the flowers all going.

'Our membership has doubled in recent months, from 34 last November to 77 members now. Out of only 200-odd businesses, that is good going, but we want more people to get more involved.

'We can't have the town for nothing. The town manager project is working, but we want to make Okehampton better and better, and we are confident we can do that.

'The chamber wants to get on, push it hard and make Okehampton as great as we can.'

The chamber is also setting up a sub-committee focused on tourism, and looking at how the organisation can help boost tourism in the town to help town traders. It is the first time the chamber will have had such a committee in 15 years.

Town promotions manager Lisa Wadling is looking to build on the successes of her first few months in the role, and is hoping to create more events to help businesses, including a Christmas light switch-on and late night shopping evenings.

She said: 'I have never seen a chamber of trade as positive as the one in Okehampton.

'Attendance at meetings is very good, and people from Waitrose come along to every meeting — getting people from the nationals like Waitrose so involved in the chamber is rare and a great thing indeed.

'We are looking to build on the successes of a positive first year, and make all the events next year even better.

'The Okehampton Festival has a firm date for next year, July 5. As for this year, we have plenty going on, with Edwardian Evening, and more business advice sessions.

'With Edwardian Evening we are looking at what we can do to improve it, with a potential farmers' market and activities.

'It has been a success, but we want to keep building and making all these events bigger and better for Okehampton.'