• Towns across the UK are being invited to enter the 'Let's Celebrate Towns' competition, the UK-wide showcase delivered by Visa in partnership with Nationwide, supported by the British Retail Consortium.
• Winning towns will each receive a £20,000 grant towards community-led projects or new initiatives that give small businesses a boost.
• This year, towns can enter across five categories: High Street Revival, Backing Local Business, Protecting Valued Places, Connected Places and Community Pride.
• The launch comes amid a renewed national focus on local pride, as the Government invests up to £5.8 billion in nearly 300 communities through its Pride in Place Programme, an ambition Let's Celebrate Towns shares by helping the best local ideas spread across the country.
• Entries will be judged by an independent panel spanning business and industry bodies, with winners announced at an awards ceremony in Parliament on 14th December 2026.
Monday 17th August 2026: Building on three years of success, this year Visa has partnered with Nationwide to launch Let’s Celebrate Towns 2026: a national showcase of the towns helping local businesses and communities to thrive.
Visa and Nationwide want to hear stories from across the UK: examples of brilliant entrepreneurship, fresh initiatives that help revive high streets, ideas that protect valued places, innovative ways communities are staying connected, and displays of local pride that make towns what they are.
Communities can encourage their local MPs, councillors and Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) to share their success stories to be in with a chance of winning. The competition will run from Monday 17th August to Sunday 25th October 2026 with entries then shortlisted before being judged across the five categories.
This year’s competition comes at a moment of renewed national focus on local pride. Through its Pride in Place Programme, the Government is investing up to £5.8 billion in nearly 300 communities across the UK, empowering local people to build stronger communities, create thriving places and take control of their neighbourhoods’ futures. Let's Celebrate Towns, run by Visa and Nationwide, shares that ambition, shining a light on the local innovators, community leaders and businesses driving renewal and investing in the health of their high streets, so the best ideas can spread across the nation.
Since launching in 2023, Let’s Celebrate Towns has recognised more than 30 towns across over a dozen counties, investing £20,000 in each winning town, and allowing community projects up and down the country to grow and thrive. In 2025, winners in Ramsgate, Gosport, Morecambe, Swanley, Malton and Norton, and Wallsend, showed innovative ways to drive good growth in their towns and bring local ambitions to life.
Let’s Celebrate Towns builds on Visa and Nationwide’s Towns Fund partnership, which invests in practical initiatives in communities across the UK. Publicly accessible defibrillators and bleed control kits have already been installed at 225 Nationwide branches as part of a commitment to equip all 605 branches, with over 46 deployments to date. Speak Easy cards in Nationwide and Virgin Money branches enable customers to communicate by pointing to information, pictures, questions or requests when speaking may be difficult, helping them access essential services such as savings and payments, or reporting a lost or stolen card and raising fraud concerns. Over 2,000 digital lessons have also been delivered, supporting in excess of 10,000 people to build confidence in getting online safely.
Rob Cameron, Group Country Manager, UK & Ireland, Visa, said:
Our towns and high streets are the beating heart of our communities, our economy and, for many of us, the place we call home. Up and down the country, businesses, community groups and local councils are doing amazing things for their towns. We launched Let’s Celebrate Towns to showcase and support the people and places driving positive change in their local areas, because growth starts at home, on high streets up and down the country. We are delighted to partner with Nationwide to deliver the 2026 competition.
Mandy Beech, Group Director of Retail Services, Nationwide, said:
Through our Branch Promise, we are proud to have a strong presence on high streets. Our ‘Towns Fund’ partnership with Visa is already making a real difference in local communities - funding defibrillators and bleed kits in branches, providing Speak Easy cards to help customers communicate with us, and delivering digital lessons to help people build confidence online. Let’s Celebrate Towns is the next step in that partnership, recognising the people and organisations who go the extra mile to support their local communities. We look forward to hearing your town’s story.
Helen Dickinson OBE, Chief Executive, British Retail Consortium, said:
Retailers sit at the heart of every town and high street, providing jobs, investment and a sense of community. Having partnered with Visa on Let’s Celebrate Towns since its earliest years, we have seen first-hand the difference it makes when local success stories get the recognition they deserve. We are delighted to see the competition return for 2026 alongside an exciting new partnership with Nationwide, and would encourage towns across the country to put themselves forward.
For further detail, and to enter, visit https://www.visaeupromotions.com/lets-celebrate-towns-visa-nationwide/
- ENDS -
NOTES TO EDITORS
- Let’s Celebrate Towns 2026 is a competition independently judged and open to residents of the United Kingdom aged 18 or over, who are members of the Local Authority, Town Council or relevant organisations of the Town. Entries must be received between 00:01 on 17 August 2026 and 23:59 on 25 October 2026 inclusive. A maximum of one entry per town per category during the competition period is permitted. A Town is defined as an area with a population between 5,000 and 225,000 based on the ONS built-up areas population distribution. For full terms and conditions, visit https://www.visaeupromotions.com/lets-celebrate-towns-visa-nationwide/
- For further information please contact: letscelebratetowns@stonehaven.co.uk
About Visa
- Visa is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.co.uk
About Nationwide
- Nationwide is the world's largest building society, with over 19 million members. Following its acquisition of Virgin Money UK PLC, Nationwide is connected with one in three people in the UK and is the second largest provider of mortgages and retail deposits. It is also a major provider of current accounts, credit cards, personal loans and business banking. Customers can choose to manage their finances in a branch, via mobile app, the internet, telephone, and post. Nationwide has around 25,000 employees and its head office is in Swindon, UK.
- As a financial services provider owned by its members, not shareholders, Nationwide's purpose is: Banking – but fairer, more rewarding, and for the good of society. For more information see https://www.nationwide.co.uk/about-us/.
The Visa x Nationwide Towns Fund partnership
- Defibrillators/bleed kits: Delivered in partnership with Visa and St John Ambulance, defibrillators and bleed control kits provide communities access to emergency equipment 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The initiative is thought to be the UK's largest-ever combined rollout of its kind and Virgin Money branches are set to follow.
- Speak Easy cards: Speak Easy cards enable customers to communicate their needs in branch quickly and discreetly. To improve accessibility across the sector and provide greater consistency for customers, Nationwide and Visa have made Speak Easy available as a free, open resource for the financial services industry.
- Digital lessons: Digital Lessons provide communities across the UK practical, jargon-free support to build confidence with technology. From setting up devices and bank accounts to spotting scams and making video calls, the lessons help tackle digital exclusion.
