The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act has become law and provides measures for new devolved powers, parishes and parking rules. Community Right To Buy The Act introduces a new Community Right to Buy will give local people the first right of refusal for valued community assets such as shops and community centres when they…
It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it! Here we focus on how to turn-around town centres by supporting collaborative placemaking. This is based on the People & Places Partnership’s work to help Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council review how it supports communities in revitalising six town centres. It also draws…
I believe that everyone has at least one culinary cultural tale inside them. Some, have many more. Such tales often begin with something like, “If you go into city centre, make sure you get something to eat at…” Put the tales together and we start to create a city’s culinary cultural story book. Food as…
Amongst the many performance measures to be expected in the ‘post-programme findings of the High Streets Task Force’, I was most interested to read and understand the final section titled ‘legacy’. This concluding section of the report published recently by the Institute of Place Management (IPM), presents suggestions for long-term learning and impact by presenting…
‘Putting partnerships in place’ seems such an obvious prerequisite to revitalising town and city centres, that sometimes it seems surprising to see it promoted as part of good practice. It was great though recently, to be reminded of our work in Lincoln when reading the latest Institute of Place Management (IPM) case study on the…
When the House of Lords Built Environment Committee published the results of its 9-month inquiry into high streets in towns and small cities at the end of November, my immediate reaction was, “What difference will it make at street level?”. Local leadership and empowered partnerships This is not stated as a criticism of the Lords’…
At the People & Places Partnership, we pride ourselves on finding solutions to pressing problems identified by stakeholders. So great to have residents’ common calls for diversifying town centre retail, business and services, so neatly addressed in this new guide to Tackling High Street Vacancy, published as a last act of the High Streets Task…
Guest blog about teamwork tackling empty shops, by Iain Nicholson MIPM, founder of The Vacant Shops Academy. Why don’t you set a target of reducing high street vacancy in your town or city centre by half in 18 months? Impossible…? What if you learned – as you will from the accompanying ‘Tackling High Street Vacancy’…
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…