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Is public wi-fi worth it? With the well-publicised failure of wi-fi schemes in towns like Swindon, plenty of people are asking whether the provision of public wi-fi is worth the effort. In this guest blog, Wendy Riley from Real Towns takes a closer look at public wi-fi and assures us that yes, it’s money well…
What turns a town or city centre in to a destination for visitors? And what even is the attraction of becoming an attraction? Those are some of the thoughts that went through my head recently as I have toured three town and city centres going through different transformations in the hope, partly, of putting themselves…
Should you consider Community Shares if you have good idea or simply stick with grants and more traditional sources of funding? What are Community Shares? Community Shares raise money by offering local people to invest in the ownership of a new cooperative venture. It’s not an ‘either/or’ alternative as Community Shares are often used to…
Is town centre renewal possible in these austere times? Last week I was lucky to take a one-day tour of Lincolnshire town centres. This taught me lessons and identified issues that have wider meaning for cash-strapped communities in need of renewal. The situation facing rural Lincolnshire town centres like Sleaford, Gainsborough and Boston will be familiar to…
Are Town Centre Investment Zones the big idea to unite vested interests? Back in 2014 when I was involved in the Government’s Future High Street Forum, collective asset management and investment seemed like one of the few genuine ‘big ideas’ on the table. For a time the thinking progressed under the careful stewardship of Chair…
On my first visit to try and begin to turnaround Ballinasloe in County Galway, it wasn’t the potential of the town centre but the talents of the people already involved that impressed me most. In the triumvirate of Seamus Duffy, Development Company Chair and local bank manager, Lyn Donnelly, capable company manager and Colm Croffy,…
Caernarfon and its car parks is one of the most recent towns to be ‘benchmarked’ by People and Places. The Town Benchmarking System continues to grow and evolve. Since small beginnings in the East Midlands over a decade ago, this innovative system measuring town and city performance on 12 Key Performance Indicators has now…
After a winter spent lingering in Essex car parks, it was good this week to hear from the leader of a local council that he welcomed the fresh thinking that we brought to the thorny issue of town centre parking. Despite national headlines and central government pronouncements, it seems to me that town centre car…