Supporting local businesses – Complete our 2026 Business Survey

The District Council has committed to working with businesses through its Community Engagement Plan. One of the priorities in the Plan is to engage with businesses, so that we can better understand the state of business in the district and the needs of the business community.

Your views are important to the Council as they can help to influence, amongst other things, the South Warwickshire Local Plan, our Economic Development Strategy, and the way we work with business. We are also interested in receiving your comments on the way we administer National Non-Domestic (Business) Rates.

A questionnaire was sent to all businesses in Stratford District on the Business Rates Register in March.

However, we are very keen to hear from those who do not pay business rates as well.

You can complete the survey online by going to this link:

SDC Business Survey 2026 Gen

We want to assure you that your responses are completely anonymous. There are questions about the profile of the business, but these will never be used to identify a business. For details about how we handle personal information, please go to Performance Consultation and Insight Privacy Notice | Stratford-on-Avon District Council

The deadline for completion is Tuesday 5 May.

The results from this survey will be available in June on our website, www.stratford.gov.uk

Previous Business Surveys

The Business Survey has been a constant since 2002 and in this case the report covers comparisons going back ten years to 2013. A mailing of questionnaires went out to 3,556 businesses on the Business Rates address database towards the end of October 2023, with a reminder sent at the end of November 2023 to those who had not responded. The survey was also promoted, via various channels, to obtain feedback from those businesses not on the Business Rates register. 722 were completed, including 110 who took up the opportunity to complete the questionnaire online. 210 questionnaires were returned to SDC by the Royal Mail not delivered, i.e., not known at this address, gone away, no longer a business, not accessible etc. A true response rate is not possible, as the survey was made available to all and not just those on the business rates register sample.

Read the results of the survey in the Business Survey 2023 Results Report.