How can we set-about shaping the future of market and coastal towns in Norfolk and across a nation? If our neighbourhood and town centres do not noticeably improve in the coming years, it won’t be because people don’t care. What will leave people frustrated and fail to deliver a much-heralded boost to ‘pride in place’, will be the piecemeal way in which issues are understood or addressed.
The different ways to shape our towns
People are passionate about different aspects of where they live and are keen to see improvements. Some people call for more and better shops; many businesses will tell you that “parking is the problem”; if asked, young people may say that there is little for them to do; enthusiastic groups may be keen to organise cultural events; whilst keyboard warriors will claim things aren’t how they used to be!
Shaping the future of our towns depends on a coming together of these different aspects through steps to collectively improve the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of revitalisation. And ‘what’ we seek to enhance, needs to be addressed as both ‘hardware’ and ‘software’. Without that, improvements risk being tokenistic, short-lived and open to criticism. That is a message that Chris Wade, Director of the People & Places Partnership, delivered to representatives from 21 market and coastal towns at the Norfolk Love Your Market Towns Conference this February.
How to shape pride in place
Chris’ presentation was made against the background of the detailed analysis in our place policy checklist that he has prepared at a national level, and the focus in Norfolk’s Local Growth Plan on placemaking and communities. Both demonstrate a strong commitment to improving local pride in place. A key message from Chris’ presentation was that for Norfolk towns and national government to pursue their shared, stated aim of increasing local ‘pride in place’, we need to focus on involving people and understanding their perceptions of priorities. People need to be involved to feel pride in progress.
As set out in the article on pride in youthful and disadvantaged places, people’s engagement and priorities for change are likely to depend on their own background as well as their location. This is based on detailed analysis undertaken by People & Places of some of the findings from 175,000 responses to the Government’s 2024-25 Community Life Survey, published in December 2025.
Through this analysis we have developed an understanding and four key performance indicators for the underlying components for creating a greater sense of pride in place. We use these here to structure a summary just for North Norfolk, though initial analysis is available for all Norfolk Local Authorities.
- Civic engagement increasing with age and prosperity: North Norfolk is the most positive of all Norfolk local authorities for civic engagement as might be expected of a prosperous area with a relatively old population.
- High experience and modest expectations of influence: North Norfolk residents have lower than predicted expectations of influence, which means there is a narrower gap than average relative to their experience of influence.
- Appealing though less embracing of change: North Norfolk has a highly positive appeal for its residents that is only moderated by near average perceptions of recent positive change.
- Strong attachment to North Norfolk: North Norfolk residents show positive attachment, because they are proud to live there, would recommend the area and would hope to live there is 5 years’ time.
This initial analysis suggests that the indicators provide a good basis for local conversations about residents’ potential for increased pride in place. Initial analysis can be made available for all Norfolk Local Authorities.
How to provide progress through partnership
The additional ingredient for determining the probable progress in improving different aspects of towns, is effective partnership working at the local level. This was one of the main conclusions from five years of the High Streets Task Force, which in its concluding report stated:
“Where we’ve seen high streets managing to reverse decline and plot a route to reinvention, it’s largely been down to passionate, committed individuals from different organisations working together around a common vision for their location.”
Key to its recommended theory of high street change is a four-step process for underpinning progress in High Street transformation that involved creating strategic partnerships and hyperlocal governance and place leadership.
As set out in Chris Wade’s article and accompanying research paper on options for improving place-based governance, local governance and partnership working can work well through different combinations of existing models that includes town councils and community ‘anchor’ organisations.
Initial analysis for Norfolk’s market and coastal towns shows that potential partners are in place and active to different degrees. Of the 24 communities assessed, 23 have town or community councils; the exception being Kings Lynn which is served by the existing borough council. Here is the full distribition of community-based organisations, with three towns having all five groupings present; 11 having four; four having three; three having two; and three having only a town council:
- business groups or chambers: 10 including 1 BID
- community enterprise, facility, heritage or tourism group: 15 with Hunstanton represented by two
- Neighbourhood Plan groups: 12, although these may be linked to town councils
- festival/events committees: 12
Such local partners and degrees of partnership working are likely to become of increasing importance as local government reorganisation establishes larger and more remote Combined Authorities. As set-out in our detailed blog on devolution’s different paces in different places, North Yorkshire is a good example of how such partnership working can evolve post-reorganisation and devolution.
The software for shaping towns
People’s experience of where they live, shapes their lives through the many softer qualities of places like health, education, safety, the local economy and culture. This will be explored in forthcoming work by People & places to accompany the imminent update of U.K. criteria for the liveability of places.
Here we focus on one particular aspect from our series of 10 steps for boosting pride in place in our ability to travel to town and access all these softer ingredients of local life. As explained in our blog on the journey from sofa to shop, this determined first by understanding different people’s potential motivations for heading into town. Our approach therefore needs to be underpinned by an understanding of how the roles and identities of places need to be presented and promoted to different customer groups.
We have a wealth of data readily available to help understand the roles of towns and their potential relationships to customers. This includes:
- the changing business mix
- footfall patterns
- travel to work data
- demographics and extent of the catchment area
- forecast housing growth
- reasons for trips to town
- types of tourists to target
At People & Places, we have a way of looking at the triggers or touch points that determine whether we make a trip to town, our travel choices and intended arrival points. Its important to understand these, to be able to influence them for different types of customers, as we have recently done in reviewing access and signage in the Malverns and five other towns across two neighbouring local authorities.
The hardware for shaping towns
When it comes to improving people’s experiences of places, many local leaders and their professionals will immediately focus on the hardware -the homes, business premises, transport infrastructure and public spaces. These are important in determining the quality of spaces and as set-out in the revitalising town centres toolkit, that we created for the Local Government Association (LGA), they need to be considered hand-in-hand with the software.
Looking at shaping the hardware, simply from a sofa to shop perspective there will be infrastructure that affects people’s perceptions and ability to travel to town. A customer-focused approach will look at this from perspective of different purposes and travel needs, and engage at different levels with the aim of putting ‘more smiling faces in places’.
Across Norfolk towns, like elsewhere, it will be important for local place partners to:
- engage strategically in transport planning
- understand existing and potential public transport provision
- investigate opportunities to make more of active travel,
- consider links to new housing
And of course, businesses and many local residents will want to talk about town centre parking. That is why we developed the people, places & parking process. Building on an understanding of the role of towns and the customers they serve, this process assesses people’s use of parking in terms of the quality (journey audit); quantity (supply & demand); convenience (location & availability) and finally, cost (tariff & profitability). It is recognised as national good practice by the LGA and British Parking Association.
In a time of local government reorganisation, when parking services will need to be merged, we believe there is the opportunity to use such customer-focused analysis to ensure that provision is improved to quality of the best.
A positive perspective on the future shape of towns
In advocating a coordinated approach to shaping the future of our towns, we are not saying that everybody needs to be involved in everything. We feel that creating a joined-up partnership and plan for shaping the future of towns, leaves people free to play to passions whilst knowing how it fits into the overall picture. For Norfolk, the fact that over 125 representatives of councils, community and commercial interests come together to share experiences and learn, is a cause for great optimism.
One of the key takeaways is that if there is common aim to to improve how people perceive and experience places to boost local pride, we will better understand how to take acount of the potential and priorities of different types of people in different places. We all have different passions about places. By working in partnership, we can, however, help ensure that some may get more and better shops; businesses may come to believe that parking brings them customers; young people may find there is more for them to do; enthusiastic groups may be free to brings towns to life with cultural events; and maybe even we will have keyboard plaudits who celebrate the success!
More information
Here is a downloadable PDF of Chris Wade’s presentation on shaping the future of market towns.
People & Places are creators of the Local Government Associations national revitalising town centres toolkit which we have employed in reviewing the future shape of 12 market and coastal towns including an initial baseline survey in Southwold and support for the post-pandemic reopening and recovery. For our full ‘menu’ of services for help in shaping the future of towns, take a look at our ‘specialities‘ or contact services@people-places.net
