All in the same boat and rowing in the same direction; pick your nautical metaphors for creating a place partnership behind a plan. Our prognosis, backed by experience and evidence, is that the towns and cities that progress beyond expectations over the next decade, will be those with an action-oriented partnership behind an evidence-based plan.
The role of passion, plans and partnerships
Be wary of the person who says, “the one thing we need to fix in this place is…”, or the organisation that wants to dominate the revitalisation of a town and city or purely progress its own projects. Such passions and single-mindedness can have a place, though as part of a well-co-ordinated and communicated plan and partnership.
From running a business to organising a community festival, the stakeholders in towns and cities understand the value of quality products with well-run organisations behind them. It’s the same for towns and cities, though the issues involved are more complex and inter-twined, whilst the varied stakeholders can initially seem to have disjointed roles in identifying issues and creating solutions.
A growing case for place partnerships
At the People & Places Partnership, we have long advocated creating a place partnership behind a plan, whilst recognising this is an approach that needs to evolve with the aims and scope of the local authorities and other partners. I guess the clue is in our name! It was an approach prominent in the revitalising town centres toolkit that we prepared for the Local Government Association in 2018: “Councils should carefully consider their roles in supporting and sustaining viable partnerships from the outset, or otherwise they risk being set-up to fail.”
At the time we recognised that the form of such partnerships needs to follow their function. We identified key determinants of this organisational form will include: “the balance sought between being a consultative partner or can-do delivery body; available financial support and the need for independent fund raising; and close alignment with council policy verses the capacity to reach-out, engage with and empower sectors of the community.” This still broadly applies though we want to use this post and the research behind it, to help evolve thinking on creating a place partnership behind a plan.
We feel that is an approach that is of increased relevance to maintain the local impetus for positive progress as the context changes at a national and international level. Creating a place partnership behind a plan can:
- Maintain a place-based focus to policy including in response to local government reorganisation and a devolution agenda.
- Enable more effective use of collective resources when public spending is under pressure.
- Consolidate an approach that joins-up local understanding and action, at a time when populism might otherwise be divisive and limit cooperation.
Backing an action-orientated planning process
In our work to help revitalise towns and cities, we treat the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ as two halves of the same whole. We support an evidence-based and action-orientated planning process that accepts that the ‘what’ of a delivery plan for town centre revitalisation needs to be a ‘live’ document that is constantly under review and evolving. Additional resources are part of this of course, and a plan can make the case for new investment as opportunities arise.
Unike approaches in many other city centre revitalisation plans, we additionally aim to provide a practical plan that also looks at the organisational development necessary to deliver progress. As such, we appreciate that this planning and delivery process needs to be backed by an understanding of the ‘how’ of putting it into effect through a partnership focused on coordination and communication. Without this, plans often remain as documents frozen in time, with recommended actions undelivered.
Evidence that lack of partnerships holding-back towns
As set-out amongst our recommended reads, a recent review by the Institute of Place Management (IPM, 2024) of the work of the High Streets Task Force, backed-up our thinking by finding that the most significant omission holding back revitalisation, was the lack of place-wide, collaborative partnerships. Titled “Making the most of High Street Investment”, the report was based on the Task Force’s engagement with councils and other partners across 140 town and city centres in England.
The IPM review, states that growing place leadership capacity by helping stakeholders work through more effective partnership structures has been key to getting things done in town and city centres. It reports that the High Streets Task Force found that over 40 per cent of towns visited had no such cross-sector place partnership. As a result, it concluded these places can mount no response against decline with limited leadership capacity and stretched Council resources. Arguably this remains the biggest challenge to high street revival.
The report provides empirical evidence about the ‘how’ of town centre revitalisation and most specifically the value of place partnerships. It suggests that such partnerships must be recognised for what they have to be; engines to drive a set of short, medium and long-term actions that individually and collectively work to repurpose places.
The report takes the perspective that town and city centres are not the sole responsibility of local authorities. They have an important role to play though also need to be able to tap into those people and organisations from across the public, private and community sectors, that can assist in re-imagining places. The report shows there is an emerging route-map to follow for transforming town and city centres.
Partnerships guiding evolving role of high streets
The report explains that whilst the function of town and city centres is changing, notably through the growth of leisure, culture and new food and drink experiences, often these changes require strong community buy-in for them to be successful. As part of this process, the hard work of winning hearts and minds, along with building confidence and pride, is just as important as the physical changes that are needed to repurpose our high streets.
The report sets-out how not only will this help to unleash wider creative forces, but it will help to develop plans and actions that range from immediate confidence building initiatives such as shop front improvements, tidy towns, festivals and events, right through to long-term plans for new public spaces, community-owned enterprises, and new transport infrastructure. Equally, it argues, richer multi-stakeholder partnerships can also act as a bulwark against cynicism, maintaining a vital pipeline of public goodwill and community support.
A checklist of place partnership success factors
To help assess the value of an increased partnership approach in leading the development and delivery of town or city revitalisation plans, we used our own experience and this national-level analysis to prepare a checklist of steps for creating a place partnership behind a plan. These steps are grouped in a way that is consistent with the ‘F-factors’ for town centre revitalisation prepared for the LGA.
Foundations
- Evidence-led and outcomes orientated
- Driven by a vision
- Expanding remit beyond funding or single issue
Function
- Delivering success through coordination and communication
- Clarifying scope and role
- Embracing the breadth of place-based activity
Form
- Evolving governance
- Combining formal and informal working
- Independent and inclusive operation
Folk
- Adding value through balance of staff support and use of partners’ skills:
- Stakeholder engagement and communication planning
- Recognising benefits sought by partners
Finances
- Secure financial footing
- Fundraising and income generation
Forward Planning
- Organisational planning
- Place planning
Mentored assessment or self-diagnosis by partners
For brevity, we have summarised the success factors in bullet points here, though you can download the more detailed checklist below. This full checklist can be used in conjunction with a mentored assessment by People & Places based on interviews with partners, or as a self-help diagnostic as part of the formation or evolution of a place partnership. The design of the checklist recognises that not all the success factors need to be present from the outset and that partnerships evolve.
Mini-case study: Evolution of Lincoln’s Place Board
The work of the People & Places in putting partnerships in place in Lincoln, was part of an IPM good practice case study on the partnership-led approach to transforming the city centre. The case study shows how the Lincoln Town Deal has proven what can be achieved through partnership, vision, and action. Its approach is evolving to enable continued revitalisation, following our work to help create transferable learning points that now form part of the place partnership success factors.
Mini-case study: Turning-around town centres
This second good practice case study focuses on how to turn-around town centres by supporting collaborative placemaking at a local, unitary authority and regional level. This is based on the People & Places Partnership’s work to help Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council unitary authority review how it supports communities in revitalising six town centres, including the larger and central Colerain.
At People & Places we are delighted when a local authority asks us to look at how they work to support local town centre revitalisation. That is especially the case when the request comes from an authority like Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council that is looking to build on already good practice. From our work immersing ourselves in Council policies, procedures and plans for working with places and speaking to 25 key stakeholders, we found the that opportunities to revise & recognise existing roles, centred on supporting local partnerships, formalising Borough-wide brokering, strengthening liaison on national policy.
Building boats and collective capacity
We are under no illusions that that creating a place partnership behind a plan does not take time and resources. Our experience and the evidence is that such an investment will pay back in added progress that is well-received locally. Any other way, and places may remain up creeks without paddles! Or as the IPM put it more eloquently in their review:
“What we are seeing across UK town centres is that many places have simply not evolved fast enough -and, for those towns locked in a spiral of decline, effective integrated place partnerships of place leaders must be the driving agent for change.”
Download place partnership checklist
You can download a copy of our Checklist of Steps for Creating Place Partnerships for a self-help diagnosis or potentially as prompts for mentored interviews conducted by us at People& Places.
This Good Practice Guide to Place Partnerships prepared for the High Streets Task Force provides practical information on membership, roles, selection of Chair and terms of reference.
