Totally Locally: Meet the man behind a grassroots campaign to transform high streets being used across the world

Watching his beloved grandad at work in Sowerby Bridge is a happy childhood memory for Chris, but only later in adulthood, when he was living up the road from where the cycle shop was, did it strike him just how much of an impact the place had had on the local community. “People would tell me tales about how much they loved the shop and how they bought their bikes there,” Chris writes, in a new guide he has published to grassroots high street regeneration. “People would go misty eyed when they’d talk about it.”

For some time, Chris’ dad ran a village post office and store in Skelton near York. It was a family business and Chris recalls how he’d mop the floors and serve on the tills after a day at school. “The shop was busy and a big part of the community,” he writes. “The one night, and this memory is a vivid one, dad said ‘The big supermarkets are starting to extend their hours, and will be opening later into the evening. This will kill our business’. And it did. We had to sell and move on.”

Chris devised a strategy of campaign ideas to put forward to Calderdale Council. He got the job and Totally Locally was launched in late 2010.

He lets his son Alistair claim the name - the pair were playing a rhyming game in Todmorden Market after seeing a sign for Incredible Edible, a network that brings communities together and grows food for everyone to share. The focus for Totally Locally was and still is on collaboration, encouraging business owners, shopkeepers and traders to work together to create vibrant and sustainable high streets and encouraging people to spend cash in their community. “The whole concept of it is if we all work together, everyone benefits basically,” Chris says. “If the high street gets busy, all the shops and businesses get busy. And if you then promote each other, it just amplifies.”

“When it first started it was never ever intended as anything other than just for Calderdale,” adds Chris, who now lives in Hunmanby. “It was an opportunity for me to do something for the place I lived. When we did it for Calderdale, it worked really well, really fast so lots and lots of towns started to ask for the strategy. The idea was then to put Totally Locally together as a kit so people could crack on with it.”

There is now a network of Totally Locally towns across the world, from Yorkshire to London to Australia and New Zealand. Each have taken the free campaign strategy and toolkit and made it their own to benefit their local communities. Now Chris has also produced a book on the campaign, Totally Locally and the Economics of Being Nice. It’s described as a “manifesto for the activists, collaborators, self starters, dreamers and ordinary people who want to make their small town a little better”.

The book tells the story of how the campaign grew from small beginnings to becoming a brand recognised across the world, with no budget, marketing or sponsorship. It’s also a guide to Totally Locally and how to start it in a town, featuring inspirational stories from people who have used it to make a difference to their own high streets.

“It’s just about telling the story really and inspiring communities to think they can actually do something themselves,” Chris says. “They don’t have to wait for anyone, for a £10m investment into their high street…This is stuff people can start doing now.”

He adds: ”When Totally Locally works, it works amazingly well but there’s a lot of nuances in there to make it work well. Rather than trying to go through it with people over and over, I thought if I write a book people will probably sit down and read this. And people are already saying they’re using it now as a guide.

“You can see people doing this and doing it their own way...People know where they live and places are different. There’s different cultures, different people, different ways of thinking so rather than telling people what to do, it’s about giving them the framework and tools to do what works in their community.”

Chris had the idea for the book four years ago, but it was during lockdown when most of his work as a brand and marketing expert “disappeared overnight” that he began to put it together. Of course, much has changed since the start of Totally Locally more than a decade ago, not least in the past two years with the impact of Covid and restrictions on daily life. “The pandemic I found really interesting,” Chris says. “At first I was terrified for small local businesses but it was a time of refocusing. People all of a sudden were at home and there was a mind shift of I need to support where I live.”

He gives an example of a bakery in Ripponden, where he was living at the time. Queues suddenly developed outside each morning and on the back of its success, more businesses were inspired to open up in the community, Chris says. “Once people start using one place, people who are considering setting up business see people are there, footfall is there, the business is doing well, maybe I can do something.”

One of the biggest changes in the past ten years is the growth of online shopping and use of social media. “If you don’t embrace that, you won’t survive,” Chris says. “Still I’m amazed to hear business say they aren’t going to do Facebook - these are ways to connect with customers. For survival now you do need to sell online, even if it’s just locally or at least use social media to show what you actually sell.

Quite how the looming financial crisis might change things, with people having less cash to spare, Chris can only speculate. “I’m not a high street expert, but high streets do seem to work in a certain way and if you look at the history of the high street, it’s always in flux and always changing.”

Giving people an experience is key, he says. “It’s got to be worth going into town. You aren’t going to go in for one thing. When you all market a place together and businesses promote each other, it highlights it’s worth a visit.”

Totally Locally is now run by Chris Sands and Haworth-based Simon Waldren along with a team of people from various towns. In order to put more focus on the Totally Locally campaign, Chris is now looking for sponsorship. Anyone interested can email [email protected]

Totally Locally and the Economics of Being Nice is out now, available to purchase from totallylocally.org