The Future of Frome Business Breakfast

Exploring where local businesses sit within a growing town and changing economy.

We were invited by the Frome Chamber of Commerce to join their recent business breakfast, bringing together local businesses to explore three key questions shaping the town’s future:

• How do we protect and prioritise employment space alongside housing and other uses?
• How can local businesses have a stronger voice in shaping the town’s economic future and how value is created and retained?
• What does it take to keep businesses, talent and investment rooted in Frome long term?

The room was full and the discussion was practical, grounded and notably aligned.

What emerged wasn’t abstract. It was a clear articulation of what the local economy needs, and where the pressure points are.

Protecting the foundations of the local economy

A consistent theme was the loss of employment space, particularly the “middle ground” of affordable offices, workshops and flexible commercial units.

These are the spaces that allow businesses to start, grow and stay in Frome.

Without them, growth becomes displacement.

This isn’t accidental, it’s structural. Commercial space is easier to convert to housing, creating a gradual erosion of the town’s economic base.

What businesses need is clear:

• Affordable, flexible workspace
• Certainty of tenure
• Space to grow into over time

Without this, long-term economic resilience is undermined.

Infrastructure that supports working life

Transport and accessibility came up repeatedly, not as secondary concerns, but as daily barriers to doing business.

Unreliable train services, weak connections between industrial estates and the town centre, and impractical parking all limit how businesses operate.

Alongside this, basic infrastructure, safe streets, lighting, access to services, was recognised as essential, not optional.

If a town is hard to work in, it becomes hard to sustain businesses in it.

Keeping talent in Frome

There is a clear leakage of young people.

Not because they want to leave, but because pathways into local employment aren’t visible or connected.

Gaps in further education, apprenticeships, work experience and school–business links all contribute to this.

There is strong appetite to change it.

But it requires coordination, not just intention.

If we don’t build clear routes into local work, we continue exporting talent.

A stronger, unified business voice

Many businesses described a disconnect between those operating in the town and those shaping decisions about it.

There is a need for:

• Earlier engagement in planning and development
• Greater transparency around decision-making
• A more coordinated and representative business voice

One moment during this discussion cut through.

In response to the question about how businesses can have a stronger voice in shaping the town’s future and influence how value is retained locally, someone wrote a single word on a post-it:

The immediate reaction was: hope isn’t a strategy.

But the room pushed back.

Because hope is what brings people into the conversation in the first place. It’s what drives people to show up, contribute and believe they can shape outcomes, not just respond to them.

On its own, it’s not enough.

But without it, nothing changes.

Being intentional about Frome’s future

Frome’s independent economy, culture and community are not accidental.

They are what attract people, businesses and investment to the town.

But they only endure if they are actively supported.

There was a strong sense that Frome needs to be intentional about:

• Supporting independent and first-mover businesses
• Building on sectors where it has genuine strength
• Attracting investment that aligns with its values

Community isn’t just a social asset here, it’s an economic one.

From conversation to action

Across all of these themes, one thing is clear:

Ownership shapes outcomes.

If land and assets are owned in ways that extract value, the benefits leave the town.

If they are owned locally, that value can be retained, reinvested and directed where it matters most.

Our Community Benefit Society model is designed to do exactly that.

• Profits are reinvested back into Frome, not extracted
• Employment and community space can be protected long term
• Local people have a stake and a say
• Decision-making is rooted in the place it affects

Our share offer is what will enable this.

It provides a practical mechanism to turn that collective ambition, and yes, that sense of hope, into something real.