As we move through the lockdown roadmap’s greenlights and bottlenecks, how can we plan for the long-term return of customers to our town and city centres? How can we set-about welcoming town customers back for good?
An evolving response
As town centres and their businesses emerge from a third national lockdown, we believe the response needs to evolve from the previous re-openings of our towns and city centres. Businesses and place managers are well versed about the required response to create an immediately safe and warm welcome back to town. The roadmap requires them to be fleet of foot as it passes through the various greenlights and potential bottlenecks. The national roadmap has also set over-riding expectations about the June end to social distancing that will be challenging to temper locally.
Welcome Back Fund
Whilst juggling the operational challenges of the next three months, place managers need to look beyond the early summer. There is the incentive for them to do this by making the most of the Government’s Welcome Back Fund which is channelling £56 million through local authorities to “help boost the look and feel of high streets and seaside towns.” This new fund is partly presented as an extension of the Reopening High Streets Safely (RHSS) fund which many saw as overly restrictive in how it could be used. In any other time, this would be seen as a major injection of cash to help plan for the short-term recovery and medium-term resurgence of town and city centres.
Planning for a town centre resurgence
The time to spend the injection of government cash on bollard covers and vinyl floor markings is passing. Instead, proactive planning needs to direct how the funding can be used to invest in researching needs, trialling solutions and building local capacity that can underpin a medium-term resurgence of town and city centres. Proposals need to be under development that will make most of the Welcome Back Fund to boost activity and footfall through to summer 2022. This will require a re-working of how the familiar strands of the existing RHSS scheme are applied in moving towards the Welcome Back Fund’s added aims of helping to boost local visitor economies and trialling new ideas for the medium-term resurgence of town centres.
Support for fresh-thinking & experimentation
The Welcome Back fund provides additional support to develop plans for responding to the medium-term impact of COVID-19 including trialling new ideas. This strand extends the support for fresh-thinking including the ability to invest in research to inform the development of a local strategic plan. The strand will support opportunities to further develop and pilot projects to reverse the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on town centres.
The Welcome Back Fund’s additional support to boost the visitor economy also enables experimentation through its declared funding eligibility for non-permanent public realm adaptations and activities that future proof the high street.
Eligible steps in welcoming back for good
The Welcome Back Fund’s eligible activity seem set to enable local authorities and partners such as Chambers of Trade and BIDS to research needs, trial solutions and enhance local capacity to underpin such a medium-term resurgence of town and city centres.
- Support to engage with stakeholders in researching, developing, delivering and monitoring the impacts of an action plan for the reopening and recovery of local economies.
- Public information activity to ensure that reopening and re-emergence of local economies through using communication specialists to enhance the digital skills and collective capacity of local businesses.
- Business-facing awareness raising activities through the recruitment of advisors to engage with businesses, build local capacity and provide flexible guidance in relation to implementation of Covid-19 measures including in adapting to licensing changes.
- Learning and engagement from temporary public realm changes including widening footpaths, pedestrianisation and adaptations to existing cycle lanes.
- Supporting and promoting a safe public environment for a local area’s visitor economy.
- Allowing local areas to develop plans for responding to the medium-term impact of COVID-19 including trialling new ideas in town centres.
As our town and city centres re-open, it is important for place managers to be around the table discussing how the available funding can be used to give an injection of momentum and ensuring we are welcoming customers back for good.
Further information & guidance
Download the government’s Welcome Back Fund guidance that gives details of elegible activity and the grant application process.
Find out about Selby’s route to recovery and revitalisation using the revitalising town centres toolkit developed by People & Places nationally for the Local Government Association.
Learn to understand how returning customers are voting with their feet through our work with Proximity Futures to track footfall in town centres such as Nuneaton and Loughborough.
Read practical case studies about how Leamington Spa, Oxford and East Suffolk towns such as Southwold have welcomed customers back to town in a safe and warm way.
Keep up-to-date through our Beyond COVID-19 resources page that includes the tracking of national trends and guidance on the lockdown roadmap’s greenlights and bottlenecks.
