At the People & Places Partnership we have welcomed the focus of successive U.K. Governments on boosting pride in place amongst the communities of our neighbourhoods, town and city centres. Such thinking aligns with our own approach of making places work for local people as demonstrated by the creation in 2018 of the national revitalising town centres toolkit for the Local Government Association in England.
Understanding and applying
Pride in place can be used as a measure of how people like where they live, what they are or are not proud of, and what matters to them. It can be considered as an outward expression of meeting local needs by creating liveable places. It can also be a counterbalance to negative narratives often portrayed on social media and be a focus for engaging people in how places like neighbourhoods and town centres are necessarily evolving. In its simplest form, we have long said it is about ‘putting more smiling faces on streets’.
We get that politicians and city leaders of all persuasions might like the concept because they feel such sentiments will reflect well on them and the interventions that they support. What we believe will help governments at all levels though, is the understanding and application of tried and tested techniques including involving people in the process of improving the places that matter to them, rather than imposing misplaced material outputs or doing it to or for them.
Taking tried and tested steps
At the People & Places Partnership, we recommend and apply the following tried and tested steps towards giving local people a central role in helping our public spaces, neighbourhoods and towns to blossom.
1. Work across issues and policies
People and places don’t operate in silos; nor should the way we work with them. Through piecing together policy as we do at a national level through our place policy checklist, or early immersion and engagement with the people behind existing local strategies, we look to join-up policy from housing to health to high street viability that impacts on place.
2. Put partnerships in place
To enable a joined-up approach and make use of all available talents and resources we have long advocated and assisted in putting partnerships in place. We love the conclusion in the Institute of Place Management’s (IPM) guidance on making the most of high street investment, that such partnerships should be seen as “engines to drive a set of short, medium and long term actions that individually and collectively work to repurpose places”. As an IPM Fellow, our Director Chris Wade has supported their submission to government on its Devolution Bill including as author of a specially commissioned paper on options for improved place-based governance.
3. Involve, empower and co-create
People will feel prouder of places when they have a voice in shaping change in-line with local needs. For us, engagement begins by gauging local stakeholders’ perceptions, interactions and priorities for places like town and city centres. This is backed-up by ongoing involvement and empowerment including key community groups having a seating as equals around the partnership table. By becoming part of co-creating solutions, local groups are empowered to ‘play to their passions’ and contribute to delivery as part of a coordinated plan -whether organising imaginative events or running community-run enterprises.
As part of our quest to boost local pride in place, we have undertaken detailed research into the receptiveness of people within a place. This includes focusing on a younger view on pride in place, as an example of ‘communiuties within communities’ that may need different approaches to engagement and have distinct priorities.
4. Improve the journey from ‘sofa to shop’
At People & Places we know that a big barrier to people experiencing and enjoying places is the perception that they are challenging to travel to. We have become specialists in providing on-line and on-street guidance to help people readily make the journey ‘from sofa to shop’ by highlighting the appeal and improving travel in practical ways. This includes our People, Places and Parking process that gives a customer-focused approach to linking parking and place, and our signage and access audits of the journey into and around town.
5. Create public spaces for people
Our approach to ‘transforming public spaces’ starts and ends with stakeholder engagement, and as in our recent post on ‘making the most of urban green spaces’, our guidance is to be aware of the accessibility, quality and appeal of such spaces to different types of users. International research indicates that females prioritise cleanliness and safety, children are drawn to well-maintained playgrounds and larger green spaces, and older adults seek serenity, safety, and amenities such as seating areas.
6. Diversify the business mix
We are acutely aware from our own baseline studies of towns and cities, backed by some national research, that the changing mix of businesses and services can have a major impact the pride people feel for the places that matter to them. Our benchmarking approach advises on the diversity of businesses that different types of towns can expect to host and we direct place partnerships to use the tried and tested approach to ‘tackling high street vacancy’ of “audit, engage, encourage and promote”. As this guest blog suggests, it is reasonable to expect vacancy rates to be reduced by 50% in 18 months through ‘teamwork in tackling empty shops’.
7. Create community-owned enterprises
At People & Places we have long been advocates of the role of community-owned, town centre businesses in bringing, often-iconic buildings back into a suitable use, providing important services that draw people into town and as acting as locally-accountable ‘anchor organisations’ that can be a focus of local engagement and delivery. As our extensive article on ‘getting ready for the right to buy’ demonstrates, we welcome the current government strengthening of legislation and call for this to be backed by wider support for the successful creation and operation of community enterprises.
8. Embrace heritage and culture
As the checklist in this extended and ever-popular blog on ‘reviving historic town centres’ shows, we have long advocated embracing heritage as a key part of the revitalisation of town centres that distinguishes from other places. Our analysis of international place brand attributes, shows that culture in its different guises, is a constant in what informed observers look for as an indicator of the appeal of places. We have begun a deeper dive into positively portraying cultural by providing guidance on telling ‘a city’s culinary cultural story’, alongside an extensive account of Stockport’s ‘Foodie Friday Story’.
9. Change the narrative and build the brand
In recent years we have become a strong voice nationally and internationally for bringing together how we ‘make and market’ places with a strong emphasis on actively involving residents and joining-up the messages portrayed by different professionals. In our extensive guidance on ‘promoting pride in place through progress’ , we recognise the need to capture a holistic view of place identity, that involves working from ‘the inside out’ and helping to influence and communicate new narratives about the ways places are evolving. As this guest blog on ‘creating pride in place through social media’ shows, it is important to embrace and curate new channels for ‘word of mouse.’
10. Manage, monitor and share success
In all our work, a ‘golden thread’ links our identification of issues, co-creation of solutions and monitoring success. This holds good for boosting pride in place where it is important to demonstrate delivery of local priorities, with an added focus on understanding changing sentiments as this post on ‘monitoring pride in place’ in relation to the changing business mix shows. This is complemented by our recent analysis on the potential for pride in youthful and disadvantaged places, as well as between areas, that can be used in tracking residents’ changing sentiments about engagement in decision-making and their perceptions of places.
What next?
We’d be delighted to help work out how we might support those local councils and place partners that want to boost pride in place in neighbourhoods, towns and city centres that are importannt to them. We can get around the table with you virtually or in person, including introductory webinars to explore different aspecst of the approach and its local application.
One of the most effective next steps, is for us to work through an audit of where places are against these 10 steps for boosting pride in place and agree a way forward that combines local knowledge and priorities with our broad expertise. We want to help you put more smiling faces in places! Contact services@people-places.net, for an exploratory chat.
Try our free, pilot online training course for boosting pride in place -ideal for sharing amongst place partners and bringing everyone up to speed. By sharing your comments you can help us shape the content for a more in-depth, follow-up training programme so that it will meet the needs in your communities.
