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“Consuming in small businesses, boutiques in the city center, it’s still nicer than doing your shopping online or in department stores! ” insists Franck Pia, mayor of the prefectural city.
As part of the government program “City heart action” and actions carried out to revitalize its city center, 77 events enlivened the city center in 2024, recalled the city councilor. To cite as an example the success of the music festival and the great parade of Christmas magic which attracted nearly 15,000 visitors to the city center.
Purchasing power at half mast
A mixed assessment for all the traders in the town center of Beauvais who are seeing a decline in purchasing power reinforced by the particularly rainy climate of the past year which prolonged the duration of pedestrianization works from the city center.
A difficult time for local traders who have been patient and are now waiting for the good weather to see customers return to the town center and finally benefit from this requalification work.
Tony Roelandt25 years old, who took over in June 2023Cathedral Hotel and his restaurant reopened in September 2023, is one of those invested entrepreneurs who have business in their skin. The latter took advantage of the period of pedestrianization work to completely redo the ground floor of his hotel restaurant located in the heart of the city which welcomes all kinds of customers, “mainly salespeople during the week, tourists of all nationalities, cyclists on weekends who take the greenway towards Forges les Eaux…“
Born behind a counter, the restaurateur who works 7 days a week from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. keeps a smile: “My parents didn’t want me to do like them because they know it’s hard. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.” Graduated with a BEP in cooking, Bac pro cuisine, then BTS in hotel catering, at the age of 23, the native of Meruvan made his dream come true by taking over this hotel without work with the help of Oise Ouest Initiatives.
Solidarity between traders
Member of the association Beauvais Shoppingthe latter testifies to the good cohesion and spirit of respective solidarity: “We make each other work by sending each other clients.” And this, despite “the austerity of this year 2024 with inflation, the surge in energy, the weather… which has impacted us all in the same way whether we are a restaurateur, optician, pharmacist…” note Christelle Moncy36 years old, manager of Papotin (43 place Jeanne Hachette) and president of the Beauvais Shopping merchants association since June 2024, which organizes “aperitifs for traders”: “Times of discussion between us with people who understand us and experience the same difficulties, about our doubts, our questions…”
The association which participates in the revitalization of the city center in close collaboration with the community, Oise Ouest Initiative managed for 22 years by Vanessa Foulon (elected in charge of relations with traders with Charles Locquetdeputy mayor in charge of the “Heart of the city” program) and the CCI Oiseis gaining momentum again by reaching 118 members (25 members in its most critical period, out of the 400 merchants identified in the heart of the city).
To carry out its actions like both big clearance salesit benefits from a subsidy of 40,000 euros from the city of Beauvais which also invested more than 34,000 euros in gift vouchers worth 20 euros directly reinjected into small businesses for Christmas for agents of the communities.
Local commerce is reinventing itself
“Consumption patterns are changing and small local traders, most of them independent, are adapting and reinventing themselves to bring customers back to the city center. It is important to keep them alive by consuming in these small local shops rather than on the internet if we do not want to relive tomorrow what we experienced during the COVID period with closed shops and a dead city center, because it is good alive !” recalls Vanessa Foulon. This is the case, for example, with the opening a little before summer of an annex to the boutique Just for dress dedicated to tall people.
The year 2025 opens on positive notes with the long-awaited reopening of the theater in the heart of the city this Saturday January 11, that of the art center Quadrilateraland the opening of theTrade office in the city center “to work together and discuss new entertainment ideas“, with the highlight being the large-scale events planned as part of the 800 years of Beauvais Cathedral. We bet the weather will follow!
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