
London Borough of Hounslow
The London Borough of Hounslow is situated to the West of London and covers 5 major towns; Chiswick, Brentford, Hounslow, Feltham and Isleworth. The total population is just over 270,000 making it the 19th largest London borough.

ShopLocal voucher scheme
About London Borough of Hounslow
The borough boosts significant industry, being home to the UK headquarters of Sky plc, GlaxoSmithKline and JCDecaux. In addition, due to the proximity to Heathrow airport, AirFrance-KLM, DHL Air Ltd and Menzies Aviation are all based in the borough.
The challenge
In 2020, the London Borough of Hounslow was in the eye of the COVID-19 storm. Its close ties with the aviation industry saw visitors to the area (staying overnight during travel) stop and many of its residents, who worked locally, lost their jobs or were put on furlough. The knock-on effect to local communities and the high streets were devastating and Hounslow became the second worst affected borough in the London area.
When restrictions started to lift, the local authority, concerned over the dramatic drop in visitors to the high street, wanted to help rebuild communities, invigorate local businesses and get people out to their high streets, enjoying the local area again.
The Government’s Additional Restrictions Fund (ARG) provided essential support to LAs whose local businesses had been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and Hounslow wanted to ensure this money went directly back into their communities, supporting residents and local businesses alike.
The solution
Hounslow developed the pioneering ShopLocal scheme. A borough wide scheme where every household was given a £20 electronic voucher to spend in their high street. The voucher was not means-tested, or restricted in any way.
Due to Evouchers innovative technology and agile speed of development, they were an obvious choice to deliver the ShopLocal voucher scheme with Hounslow. The two project teams worked collaboratively to design and build a secure, easy to use platform that enabled Hounslow to onboard local businesses while directly engaging with all residents, providing every household with a voucher to redeem on their high street.
Because ShopLocal was such an innovative concept, there was a significant amount of work required with both parties. Evouchers were specing out and developing the new system all at the same time as Hounslow were completing their own development. This meant things were fluid and as the project evolved, additional dev work was required and executed quickly and effectively.
Iain Shiels, Project Manager at Hounslow says; “Evouchers responded really well to the challenges, queries and changes we had. The project largely ran smoothly and that was down to the collaborative team work and responsiveness of the Evouchers team. Our account manager, Hayley, was a superstar for the duration of the project – she was really responsive and delivered all the information we needed to enable us to do our part of the project.”
Due to the small size of the Hounslow project team, there was a greater amount of administrative work to get the scheme off the ground. “We did a series of mail outs to our residents to encourage uptake and this took up quite a lot of time. In hindsight, we would perhaps start the communication earlier, and be more explicit as to the redemption process” says Iain “that said, the Evouchers project management with in person visits to businesses, training and ongoing support set the project up to run very smoothly.”
ShopLocal was launched to local businesses in the first instance. This was done through Hounslow’s direct mail channels and encouraged businesses to sign-up to the scheme before receiving onboarding support which was delivered effectively by Evouchers. Over 430 businesses signed up to the scheme – higher than anticipated.
Iain says; “Some managed the scheme incredibly well – a local garden centre for example – emailed its entire customer database to tell them about the scheme and saw more than £65,000 worth of vouchers being redeemed in store.” Other businesses, struggling to even keep their lights on, had other priorities however on average, businesses saw an uplift of around £3,000 to £4,000 worth of vouchers being spent. “What this shows is the potential impact a scheme like this can have if businesses really get behind it” says Iain.
ShopLocal saw over £10,000 being spent per day in the height of the scheme and the team were nominated for the Best Programme of Support for Small Businesses Award. Whilst they didn’t win, they were highly commended by the judges.
There were some technological hiccups such as retailers not redeeming the vouchers at point of sale and thereby they were sometimes used more than once. This was easily rectified through a mailshot update by Hounslow.
Of the scheme, Iain says: “overall, ShopLocal was a great success for our borough. Whilst £20 doesn’t necessarily change people’s habits totally, it did expedite the confidence for people to come back to the high street and help to embrace the new normal or new safe normal. It was a way to bring people back to the community and reinvigorate small business holders.”
“We had some concerns that the vouchers would be spent on fast food but it didn’t happen – people seemed to want to invest in their home, life or themselves. Every time we did a mass mailout, there was a huge spike in people spending their vouchers. We did a particularly successful ‘12 day countdown’ to the end of the scheme which saw quite an uplift.”
The future
The ShopLocal project was very reactionary to the circumstances at the time. “It worked really well and did what it needed to do” , says Iain. “If we were to get additional funding and the local economy needed further assistance, it’s definitely worth considering in the future however we would explore alternative ways of communicating out to residents and encouraging a similar model to that in Northern Ireland where they had to register online and proactively get their electronic vouchers.”
“I realise your job is probably a thankless task, but I wanted to commend the council on their brilliant voucher scheme for residents and local independent business in the area. For us, it has been a huge success and the re-sending of vouchers and extensions were a very well thought out idea. Thank you so much”
Adam – Bookcase London
“I would like to pass on my positive feedback to you regarding the ShopLocal Evouchers scheme. Our members here at Wyke Green were delighted to be able to redeem them through us. I can’t speak highly enough of Evouchers either, their platform is fantastic and incredibly user friendly. Thank you for helping to implement this initiative, we would definitely be interested in participating in more down the line.”
George Reid – Wyke Green Golf Club