FOR Cardiff has been awarded the coveted Civic Award at the annual Cardiff Life Awards at City Hall.
The Civic Award recognises FOR Cardiff’s commitment to improving Cardiff and supporting its 1,000+ member businesses.
This is the second time FOR Cardiff was presented with the Civic Award after previously winning in 2020.
This year’s application covered the period from January to December 2021, a challenging year for businesses and the city centre.
During that time, FOR Cardiff continued to support businesses through lobbying local and national government, holding a hospitality recruitment fair, offering free training and more.
We launched projects to improve the safety of the Welsh capital such as Safe Places Cardiff and the Cardiff Women’s Safety Network and we ran campaigns to attract the public to the city centre once again.
One such campaign was the Art & Soul of Cardiff, a pop-up art exhibition inside Cardiff’s historic arcades that achieved a 34% increase in footfall in Cardiff city centre versus same period in 2020.
Seven design and performance graduates from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama were commissioned to create hanging features for each of the seven arcades. The hanging features represented ‘the experience of Cardiff’, shining a light on the city’s uniqueness, diversity, and vibrant culture.
The bilingual campaign was promoted through the ‘City of Arcades’ brand, a brand FOR Cardiff established in 2018 to attract visitors to Cardiff by harnessing the city’s beautiful Victorian and Edwardian arcades.
Cardiff Life said:
“FOR Cardiff massively enhanced the capital with a 34% increase in footfall to the city. Great representation.”
Executive Director Adrian Field said:
“Its an honour to achieve this recognition for our contribution to improving Cardiff city centre.
2021 was a tough year for businesses but we are already seeing signs that the city is recovering with many new businesses opening and exciting developments on the horizon.”