‘Follow our fivers’ campaign aims to show importance of buying local

A twitter-based experiment is being carried out by Shropshire Council over the next few weeks to follow the journey of a series of ‘£5 notes’ as they travel around the county, and possibly beyond.

The experiment aims to find out what happens to the money that people spend with Shropshire’s local businesses, and how can people be encouraged to spend their money locally, to help boost the local economy.

‘Follow Our Fivers’ will be launched at The Minsterley Show on Saturday 16 August 2014 by Shropshire Councillors Tudor Bebb and Roger Evans.

Initially ten laminated ‘£5 notes’ will be launched and their journeys tracked over the next few weeks.

Anyone handed one of the laminated fivers is asked to follow the instructions on the back, and pass it on when they next spend £5 or more.

People are asked to tweet about how and where they’ve spent’ their £5 – using #followourfivers – and ideally include a selfie of them spending it.

This will let others follow the journey of these fivers and see how many times they’ve been used.

Anyone not on twitter can instead send an email to claire.cox@shropshire.gov.uk.

Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for business growth:

“This is a fun but potentially very valuable way of looking at a very important issue.  For every £1 spent with a local business, 63 pence is reinvested locally, so the aim of the experiment is to look at how locally-circulated our fivers have been to help us consider how we can keep money circulating in the local economy, and how we can encourage people to spend locally.

“We hope it will show us whether the notes have stayed in the local economy, if they have gone further afield and, if so, where have they been and are they coming back to Shropshire?”

Roger Evans, Shropshire Councillor for Longden, said:

“Buying local is important.  We need to support our local small companies both here at our own local show and others around this area.  I am pleased that the Minsterley Show has been chosen to demonstrate how important it is to spend our hard-earned money locally, to help show the effect this has on our local economy and how many jobs it potentially helps keep in the area.”

Tudor Bebb, Shropshire Councillor for Minsterley, said:

“I’m delighted to be helping to launch this campaign, and I look forward to following our fivers and seeing where they end up.”

To find out more about this project please click here or call 01743 255617.