At the People & Places Partnership we have come to consider choices made on the family sofa as key to the future success of our town and city centres. We see the journey from sofa to shop as a chain of connected thought processes and physical travel that takes people into town -or not!
Touch points from on-line to on-street
When we sit at home on sofas (or around dining tables, engaged online or in our personal spaces), it’s when choices are made -or not- to surf online, entertain at home, head to the countryside, drive to a retail park, or possibly travel into town! It’s a journey that often begins on-line though that has to deal with perceptions and practicalities on-street.
In marketing terms, the barriers and incentives that crop-up as we make decisions about travelling into town are known as ‘touch points’. At People & Places, we embrace this thinking in a way that we believe complements and adds to the promotion of town and city centres. We focus on creating a deeper pride or attachment to places, we consider the perceptions and practicalities of physical touch points on route, and we aim to flip that commonly-held contention that parking is a problem rather than a customer-focused service that helps us to use town and city centres. In improving the overall journey from sofa to shop, we bring together three facets of our work that connects people and places.
ONE: Refreshing place brands and identity
We understand that local residents can be the hardest to bring on board in evolving the experiences and perceptions of places. Often their dominant feelings is one of what we call ‘negative nostalgia’ and they don’t necessarily feel part of proposed progress. We address this by our wider approach to ‘boosting pride in place’ and accompanying ‘free and fast’ short course created with Placemaking.Education.
We have done a lot of thinking about how people perceive the evolution of places. We believe that the branding and management of places should go hand in hand. And our approach to place branding is well articulated in think pieces about ‘branding that gets beneath the skin of a place or ‘promoting pride in place through progress‘. We believe that place brands and identity should be developed from the ‘inside out’ and is about creating new narratives and experiences of places. It’s not about logos and straplines.
On the sofa this converts to, “People say there’s a lot happening in town. We should head there”. It offers authentic experiences that people feel part of and where visitors expectations are met.
TWO: Traveling into and around town
The next step is to focus on enhancing the ease and opportunities for travel to town, including increasing understanding of the ‘triggers for trips’, online investigation and where digital navigation might take unfamiliar visitors. As shown in our approach to reviewing access and signage in the Malverns and elsewhere, this is followed-up by practical improvements such as information about travel options, parking matched to customer needs and enhamced orientation that helps people get the most out of a visit through our analysis of routes incorporating attractions, services and landmarks.
As part of such a review, we work closely with local authorities and stakeholders in sharing insights on how town centres are used. Likely issues for exploration can include:
- the importance of first impressions when considering how visitors best arrive to town.
- awareness of importance of key arrival points for different types of users including motorists as day-visitors, local shoppers, Blue Badge holders, train travellers or cyclists.
- opportunities to work collectively with all attractions, public services, events & businesses to promote appropriate arrival points.
Our aim is to turn on-street touch points into a positive experience that creates a seamless journey from sofa to shop, restaurant, theatre, historic church or riverside walk.
THREE: Linking parking with people & place
Over the years we have learnt that you cannot have conversations about improving travel to town without being willing to engage in the nuts and bolts of improving parking provision. We have developed our People, Places and Parking Process as national good practice for the Local Government Association in improving travel, parking and access to town and city centres. The process takes and evidence-based and customer-focused approach to improving the connection between parking and place.
As shown by work for local authorities such as in linking parking and place in Sleaford or with Business Improvement Districts in improving parking for businesses and customers in cities such as Salisbury, the review process takes a practical approach to enhancing parking provision by assessing:
Quality: managing the parking experience. Understand that customers’ perceptions and use of a place and its parking are influenced by the whole ‘parking journey’.
Quantity: balancing parking supply and demand. It is important to match the availability of parking suited to different uses across a town and for different times.
Cost: strategies to optimise revenue and usage. Setting the parking tariff (price and duration) is essential in managing demand encouraging visits to town.
Putting more smiling faces in places
Choices made on the family sofa can be important to the success of out town and city centres. Our aim in improving the journey sofa to shop is to smooth-out any perceived and practical bumps in chain of connected thoughts and physical travel that takes people into town. It’s an approach that goes hand-in-hand with our wider work to support place partnerships and boost pride in place. Ultimately what seem like complex threads can combine in seeking the simple outcome of ‘putting more smiling faces in places‘.
About the author
People & Places Director, Chris Wade, is author of the LGA’s ‘revitalising town centres toolkit‘ and Fellow of the Institute of Place Management (IPM). You can read his wider views on how “progressive place leaders welcome extra options for travelling into town” in this IPM opinion piece.
