Our new Talk of the Towns in East Suffolk video demonstrates two points that are key to revitalising town centres across the country: firstly, it is necessary to seek to understand and tackle a range of inter-related issues; secondly there is a lot to be learnt from how and what other towns are achieving to address these issues. In short, if all the towns replicate all of the ways of working, mission accomplished!
National approach & learning
The Talk of the Towns in East Suffolk video captures our findings from surveying and engaging with key stakeholders in 12 communities across the district. The lessons learnt could easily apply across other clusters of towns anywhere in the country. This work follows the approach adopted as national good practice in the handbook on Revitalising Town Centres that we prepared last year for the Local Government Association.
Understanding neighbouring towns
Our work in East Suffolk, like anywhere, began by gathering evidence through standard town centre metrics as well as surveying local business and customer perceptions of place. It is an approach to understanding local issues and priorities from an evidence-base that was first piloted locally in Southwold. The added benefit of surveying 12 towns in East Suffolk is that, along with helping understand individual towns, it also lets towns look over the fence at their neighbours to compare and contrast the priorities faced.
As well as beginning to understand the relative priorities of neighbouring towns, a big bonus along the way has been engaging with groups already offering solutions. This gives us a chance to help share what is working between neighbouring towns in a way that collectively addresses the whole gambit of issues.
Putting together partnerships
If we want to demonstrate the importance of building an effective partnership behind the scenes, we can point to the award-winning and business-led Choose Woodbridge or the community-backed Wickham Market Partnership. Both show the importance of effective coordination and communication at the heart of a strong local partnership. Likewise, Felixstowe Forward is a town-wide partnership bringing together local authorities and the Chamber to coordinate a collective approach to tackling the town’s key challenges.
Wickham Market’s Inspirations shop opened in 2016 as a community-led project backed by local people buying shares to help businesses and bring the former Co-op back in to use. Currently the George Community Pub ‘Society’ is celebrating the award of a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant that allows them to plan for restoration of Wickham Market’s only pub.
Planning & property
There is a wealth of local experience in creatively tackling the sometimes seemingly immovable planning and property issues affecting town centres. Saxmundham is a leading light amongst East Suffolk towns in influencing new housing and economic growth through Neighbourhood Plannning. A few miles down the road the Leiston Community Land Trust has very ambitious plans to create a series of connected town squares with adjacent housing and business premises. This is possibly the most ambitious of all the emerging town centre projects across East Suffolk and if successful could be truly transformational. Perhaps some of their inspiration has come from the portfolio of properties owned by Southwold Town Council that includes prominent town centre shops and a site earmarked for a new Enterprise hub. Elsewhere in Southwold the Southgen community benefit society are transforming the old hospital in to a Community Hub that will provide a new home for the library, a nursery, a co-working space, and a farm to fork café.
Developing digitally
As part of Framlingham Connected, free Wi-Fi has been rolled out across the town centre in a move designed to boost business and develop skills and services. Geo-sense monitoring is also helping track changes in footfall. @bestoffram is great example of a town-based Instagram account helping to boost the online profile. Many of Aldeburgh’s businesses are making great use of Instagram to promote an appealing combination of ‘products and place’ including @aldeburghmarket, @ivesaldeburgh, @harrisandjamesaldeburgh and @ocbutcher . The future opportunity is to increase this collective promotion of place by businesses through sharing images, cross-marketing and curating topical content on town-based platforms.
Running festivals & events
Beccles, Bungay and Halesworth are a cluster of three East Suffolk towns with a reputation for running successful town centre events. The Beccles Food & Drink Festival is a free one-day event showcasing local artisan producers and bringing visitors to the town. Bungay is renowned for its wonderful street markets. The Bungay Garden Market in May, the Antiques Market in July and the Christmas Market in December are established features of the annual calendar. The Halesworth Antiques Street Market has been held in aid of charity for nearly a quarter of a century, whilst this year’s tenth anniversary Scarecrow Week with its well-trodden Pumpkin Hunt create an autumnal buzz in the town.
Seeing Lowestoft in a new light
In recent years Lowestoft has attracted a raft of new regeneration funds aimed at enhancing the town’s built heritage. Since 2018 the North Lowestoft Heritage Action Zone has been focusing on the conservation of its medieval High Street, connecting passageways or Scores, historic smokehouses and net stores, and once fine Victorian Parks. Currently proposals are being finalised for further Historic England backed Heritage Action funding for Kirkley and for the transformation of Lowestoft town centre as part of the Government’s Future High Streets Fund.
The First Light Festival is a brand new, 24-hour festival for the UK. It celebrates the first light of midsummer’s weekend in recognition of the Lowestoft’s status as Britain’s most easterly point. With a fresh feel and performances getting national coverage, it is part of putting the smiles back on local people’s faces and making visitors think differently about the town.
Finding out more
Learn more about the making of our Talk of the Towns in East Suffolk video as part of our Success Stories feature.
Take a look at the case study on developing an evidence-base in Southwold as part of our Postcards From series.
Download a copy of the LGA Revitalising Town Centres Handbook and access the accompanying online toolkit.
