The UK’s first TestTown gave an unprecedented boost to Dunfermline, generating £10,000 of sales and doubling the number of visitors to participating streets.
The Carnegie UK Trust’s pilot project to help revive flagging town centres recorded the trading sales in just three days.
The sum raised by the 11 young entrepreneurs taking part is believed to break many previous records held for pop-up shop events.
Footfall in Dunfermline town centre, where the competition was piloted, also more than doubled in the locations where the pop-ups were trading.
Now the project leader has praised the enthusiasm of the local community, who embraced the innovative pilot, for their role in its outstanding success.
Carnegie UK practice manager Jim Metcalfe said: “It is thanks to the extraordinary support and enthusiasm of the local community of Dunfermline that the TestTown competition proved such a hit.
“Local residents came out in droves to shops at TestTown and Fife Council and Dunfermline Delivers were instrumental throughout.”
He said the project was also lucky to have financial and business start-up support from RBS, while DM Hall secured all of the vacant units for the finalists.
He gave a special thanks to Bill Fletcher and other local landlords who provided the units to allow the pop-up shops to emerge.
“Those that took part are now working on setting up permanent businesses and building on their success and learning from TestTown. Plus, a number of the vacant units they traded in in Dunfermline have had interest from other businesses looking to open up shop,” he revealed.
“TestTown 2013 has provided a great platform to help support young enterprise and inject new energy into towns across the country, and we are already looking forward to seeing where TestTown goes from here, growing and expanding and hopefully appearing in more high streets across the UK.”
After a weekend of trading, a panel of expert judges, led by Kwik Fit billionaire Sir Tom Farmer, chose Back on the High Street as the winner.
Set up by Dunfermline’s Emma Pauley and Jenna Fairgrieve, from Falkirk, their idea was to create retail space for local crafters to sell their wares on the high street.