North Herts Council is working with the four communities of Baldock, Hitchin, Letchworth Garden City and Royston in planning North Herts’ town centre recovery and revitalisation.
The Council is being assisted in planning North Herts’ town centre recovery and revitalisation by the expertise of the People & Places Partnership.
Involving local businesses & community groups
In planning North Herts’ town centre recovery, the work addresses the immediate issues faced by the four town centres, their businesses and customers in reopening and trading post-pandemic. People & Places are helping North Herts Council engage with these stakeholders in also planning for and monitoring the medium- and longer-term revitalisation of the four centres.
Critical to the success of this work in planning North Herts’ town centre recovery, is the involvment of local Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in Baldock, Hitchin and Letchworth Garden City, the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation and Royston Town Council, in helping to understand the local businesses’ experiences. It is also vital for North Herts Council and People & Places to engage with the local communities to help understand how residents are using the town centres differently.
Successful surveys informing future proposals
As part of planning North Herts’ town centre recovery, business and customer surveys have been conducted across all four towns. The findings from these surveys have provided a basis for developing proposals for the short-term recovery and long-term revitalisation of each town centre. Provisional findings are being shared with key local stakeholders including ward councillors, business organisations and community groups, to help develop future proposals for each town centre.
Links to local resources
This short video gives a summary of the processes involved in planning North Herts’ town centre recovery. New resources will be added to this web page as the work progresses.
Dedicated web pages have been created for each of the four towns, providing information on their individual recovery and revitalisation story:
Learning from the national picture
To get an understanding of the process being followed in planning North Herts’ town centre recovery, you can access the revised version of Local Government Association’s national revitalising town centres on-line toolkit prepared by People & Places. This updated toolkit includes practical guidance on post-COVID 19 recovery planning including a case study on People & Places’ support for reopening & revitalising Selby town centre.
Learn about opportunities for welcoming town customers back for good through government funding to help boost the look and feel of high streets and seaside towns. The launch of the government’s much-awaited White Paper, offers further opportunities for Levelling Up our town and city centres.
With the Autumn Statement’s confirmation of the Shared Prosperity Fund go-ahead, take a fresh look at the opportunity it provides to help shape North Herts town centres, and communities across the country.
