Meet Chris Sands, the man behind the Totally Locally campaign to transform high streets being used across the world

Chris Sands can remember his grandfather’s bike shop as if it were only yesterday he visited - the smell of grease, the noise of the bell over the door when a customer came in, the group of cyclists that would meet outside for rides which Cyril would lead most weekends.

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.”

His love of his grandparents’ shop was, in part, the reason that in 2010, when approached by Calderdale Council to pitch an idea for a ‘shop local’ campaign for his area, he jumped at the chance. He was well-placed, having worked in branding and marketing for over ten years, but it was also a passion project for Chris, having had direct experience of the effect small shops can have on a community, from both his father and grandfather.

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.”

Totally Locally is now run by Chris Sands and 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