OKEHAMPTON could be getting its own currency next year as part of a marketing campaign aimed at revitalising the fortunes of the town centre shops.

Town councillor Paul Vachon unveiled his proposal for the ‘Okehampton pound’ at Okehampton Town Council’s meeting on Monday evening.

The detailed plans will be put to residents and businesses at a public meeting in the Charter Hall in January – with a view to getting the scheme up and running before next summer.

‘The plan is to print £40,000 of these things on hologrammed paper by a company that prints banknotes so that they feel like real notes,’ said Cllr Vachon. ‘They will be strong enough to be in circulation for 20 years.

‘We are suggesting using the Okehampton pound like a discount voucher but with a value in that it can be circulated.

‘It would be given to a retailer in part payment, of whatever discount the retailer would like to give but then the note itself could be used by the retailer to spend on whatever they want, so it would work like a real currency. The idea is to get more people to spend in the town centre shops.’

The Okehampton pound would be issued by a proposed Community Interest Company (CIC), provisionally called Prosper Okehampton. Cllr Vachon is suggesting kickstarting the whole process by issuing Okehampton pounds to people investing in the CIC through a crowdfunding campaign.

The not-for-profit enterprise would also take over responsibility for enticing people into shops – and staging events such as Edwardian Evening – from the Okehampton and District Chamber of Trade. The new organisation would be able to apply for charitable funding and employ someone two days a week to promote the town through a newsletter and other means.

‘To prosper rather than just survive, we need to have an initiative to promote the town,’ said Cllr Vachon. ‘The town is growing but that means we have also got more people in the town that can come in and use the facilities, so we need to make sure that we get that communication out about what is here.

‘It is really about trying to support the town more than anything.

‘At the last count, I counted more than 15 empty retail offices and offices in the town.

‘I think the smaller retailers are feeling the pinch, and have been for some time. A lot of them are in dire straits and they are coming and going quite rapidly.’

‘They don’t have the footfall of the supermarkets.

‘There are in fact some essential shops we don’t have in the town that people have to go outside for – shoe shops and bookshops.

‘The most recent threat to small retailers is the increasing trend of online shopping and we are all guilty of that.’

However, he said the Okehampton pound would entice shoppers who did not use the internet to come into town, as well as those who do.

‘The elderly population especially are “left out” of the internet and yet they are the more affluent in our community.’

A recent crisis meeting of the Okehampton Chamber of Trade heard that more volunteers were needed to stage events in the town.

It was also said that membership of the chamber was declining.