What will be the impact on local empowerment and support for growth, fromdevolution’s different paces in different places. Specifically, in my role as Director at People & Places, I wanted to understand the implications for influencing place-based policy and support for delivering growth through local government reorganisation and devolution via a new layer of strategic…
From sifting through ministerial contributions to a House of Lords Inquiry, our conclusion is that Stevenage may hold the key for predicting government high street policy for years ahead. It helps that one of the two ministers answering questions at last week’s session of the high streets in towns and small cities inquiry, was Baroness Taylor…
How do you address community concerns about the loss of town centre banking services, and how do you ensure that local, small businesses can still deposit cash conveniently? What might be a suitable solution for safeguarding banking services? Addressing local concerns At the People & Places Partnership, we pride ourselves on finding solutions that address…
Three of my favourite town centre regeneration projects tick all the right boxes as successful examples of the art of asset-based development. The Number 8 Community Arts Centre, Pershore; The Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal and Galeri Caernarfon are all iconic buildings that earn their keep within their towns; all are community-owned and managed; all provide…
It was great to see one of my favourite town centre-based community enterprises announced this week as one of 12 worthy beneficiaries of the expansion of the Architectural Heritage Fund’s Heritage Development Trusts model. Galeri Caernarfon Since it was formed in 1992, a key role of Galeri Caernarfon has been to buy old, derelict and…
The report “community-powered high streets” published by Power to Change makes an important and timely call for greater importance to be given to the role of community businesses in the revitalisation of our town and city centres. It sets-out to demonstrate “how community businesses will build town centres fit for the future”. Not a how-to…
With the Autumn Statement’s confirmation of the Shared Prosperity Fund go-ahead, we take a fresh look at the opportunity it provides to help shape our town and city centres. Shared Prosperity budget At the time of its Spring 2022 announcement, it was promised that the Shared Prosperity Fund would provide £2.6 billion of new funding…
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund provides a great opportunity to shape our town and city centres for the next three years. If used wisely, the Fund can help local authorities and partners in sharing prosperity across our towns to move from post-COVID recovery planning, to delivering medium-term projects that can begin to transform places and…
This downloadable checklist on creating a town centre recovery plan provides a valuable resource to local leaders in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. It supplements the updated revitalising town centres online toolkit that the People & Places Partnership has prepared for the Local Government Association (LGA) and can be read alongside our free, downloadable checklist…
Twelve towns across East Suffolk are set to benefit from evidence-led investment in town centres following research undertaken by the People & Places Partnership. Towns Initiative The East Suffolk Towns Initiative (ESTI) will be the first phase in developing and delivering evidence-led investment in town centres. It is aimed at delivering economic development solutions following…