Rowenna Davis, associate partner at Global Future Foundation, sets out 12 principles for reviving our town centres.
Boarded up doors, tatty shops and lightless windows. Walking around our town centres leaves too many of us feeling sad and insecure, witnessing decline with a grim sense of inevitability. Croydon town centre, my home, has left many locals feeling that way, motivating me to look at how we might turn things around.
Bringing together best practice and research from across the UK, here are twelve principles that all local government leaders might learn from:
1. Go for growth. Make towns a source of jobs, training and upskilling. Too often, local leaders have hoped that sprucing up a few shop fronts and adding some planters would bring people back in. But cosmetic changes do very little if your local population can’t afford to spend anything. You need good wages to sustain demand for local shops and services. The new Manchester Baccalaureate, a skills qualification introduced by the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, is a fantastic example of this.
2. Shift from retail to social use. Public spaces should specialise in doing what online can’t do – that physical coming together that we treasure so much, particularly after Covid. In short, we’re talking about shifting from ‘buying’ to ‘being’. Towns that have shifted towards more social, entertainment and leisure spaces, such as cafes, gyms and playparks, are doing well. Middlesborough is a good example, introducing an electric karting track, golf, VR gaming and karaoke pods into their regeneration plans.
3. Bring in the public sector. Think about what public services can be relocated into central highstreets e.g. hospitals/GP surgeries, universities or council services. These services give people reasons to come to town, adding energy and footfall. Stockport, for example, is seeking to relocate its hospital in a former Debenhams store.
4. Make more homes. Consider increased housing places in void or vacant retail units. Whilst we don’t want town centres to become purely residential areas, more mixed use helps provide much needed homes and avoids the ‘broken window’ effect. Residents are also customers, giving an extra demand boost to the shops that remain.
5. More green spaces and playparks. Nature is a huge source of public joy that people will travel to access. Lots of successful urban regeneration projects are pulling up concrete to make way for green spaces. Stockton on Tees, for example, has demolished a huge old shopping centre and replaced it with a park three times the size of Trafalgar Square.
6. Keep things accessible. Include a stronger focus on accessibility for disabled, elderly and families as well as better transport links. Make the green transition, but don’t forget the car altogether! You need everyone to be able to reach your town centre.
7. Celebrate your history and culture. Lean into shared heritage and culture as this sense of tradition binds us together and offers towns and highstreets unique selling points. Portsmouth is a great example here, leaning into its naval heritage with the Spinnaker Tower and new anchor-decorated walkways around the city.
8. Work with technology, not against it. At its best, town centre regeneration won’t mean competing with the online world for social interaction but complimenting it, e.g. apps for towns that help you meet neighbours or promote local events.
9. Lean into events. Markets, festivals, celebrations, pop up activities – all these things appeal to our nature as social beings and help increase trade. Sheffield has reinvented the old town centre by turning its old Coop store into ‘Kommune’, an independent food hall.
10. Experiment with pop ups. Where there are vacant properties, consider short term low rent deals for entrepreneurs and pop ups, particularly in partnership with local universities. This can help growth, skills and local footfall in the town centre.
11. Use design to boost social interaction. Even small changes can work here. For example, corner benches enable strangers to share a seat and a potential chat whilst having their own space. Retail that is exposed to the street without being hidden in a shopping centre can increase footfall and encourage window shopping.
12. Work with local people. Regeneration should serve local people, not force them out. Residents, businesses and community leaders should inform everything from the vision of their town centre to its implementation and review.
So, there are things we can do. And if you take one thing from reading this, let it be that town centres can rise as well as fall. If we roll up our sleeves and learn from best practice, our town centres can be restored as real sources of pride.
For more on this topic, download Global Future Foundation's report, Earning & Belonging.
