High Street Renewal Fund by ATCM and UK Dept for Communities & Local Government - This nice little publication has 7 examples of High Street initiatives, showing the organisations, projects and leadership it takes to make big impacts on town centres. It’s available from the ATCM web site here: https://www.atcm.org/programmes/town_teams/resources/high_street_renewal_fund
Following the recent IPI conference on Retail and Town centres, it’s time to return to the theme of the Retail Planning Guidelines, and Retail Strategies, and pose some issues not aired in the conference that day.
It’s a fundamental aim of the Draft 2011 Retail Planning Guidelines to “protect, support and promote the continuing role of city and town centres”. This is a consistent theme to the 2005 Guidelines, which in principle sought to prioritise town centre retail through approaches such as sequential testing. It didn’t work.
The roll-out of retail strategies, resulted in the over-estimation, and over-supply of retail floor space generally in all the wrong areas. It also pitched the existing town centre retailers in an adversarial or “protectionist” role against the people they supported with their rates, as Councils went in search of new rates base. The problems with the approach to Retail Strategies over the last 10 years were numerous, and the results on the ground speak for themselves, and the penny is dropping.
What’s important now though, is to look at the new Guidelines and ask can we to do something useful and different? The answer is yes, but it will mean that Council’s will need to stop hiring the same old people to do the same old thing.
The key lies in the new National Policy Objectives:
1. Retail development should be plan-led, including the identification of retail requirements and appropriate planning policies and objectives, and the implementation of city and town centre management strategies aimed at securing development plan objectives.
2. The planning system should focus on promoting and supporting the vitality and viability of city and town centres in facilitating the requirements of the retail sector.
3. The planning system should play a key role in ensuring competitiveness in the retail sector, particularly through city / town centre management strategies and active land management approaches aimed at new market entrants, encouraging necessary development in suitable locations, and advancing choice of retail outlets for the consumer.
4. The planning system should promote forms of retail development that in themselves will encourage greater use of sustainable transport modes including public transport, cycling and walking in accordance with the Smarter Travel strategy.
5. Retail development has a key role in delivering quality in the built environment by contributing to a high standard of urban design.
The inclusion of Town Centre Management strategy in the first and third NPOs is significant, but it can’t be left as an abstract measure for the implementation section. It has to be done as an integral part of the Retail Strategy, where the Strategy needs to become a process; a living document. This requires Councils and Business Communities to roll-up the sleeves and work in Partnership.
Retail Strategies need to go beyond Vitality and Viability. Town centres need to be able to provide a product or experience that can compete with or complement very sophisticated multi-national retailers and booming e/m-commerce models. As the central bank said .. Wait and see isn’t an option. Any town centre that collectively works to re-position itself and respond to change is a much more attractive proposition.
Retail Planning Guidelines 2012; an opportunity for Urban Centres, but only if Local Authorities change their game
The final Retail Planning Guidelines published on 1st May, present a much stronger focus on town centres. The National Policy Objectives in particular really place a fresh onus on the quality and location of development. However, it remains to seen if Objective 3 (the Asda/Walmart clause) could be used to go a different direction altogether (in the interest of competitiveness).
The Guidelines come down heavy on Retail Warehouse Parks, which are struggling anyway, and looking to broaden their occupier profiles to fill units.
The Guidelines (and Ministers) talk the talk on Vitality and Viability, but a lot of hard work needs to be done on this. There is a huge information-gap on town centres, on all the important measures referred to Annex 2.
Town centre health checks or indicators need to be removed entirely from the context of development proposals, as an open-source of information for town and city centres to be able to say – this is where we are – and here is an action plan for what we can do.
This requires a huge change in mind-set for Local Authorities and Business Associations/Chambers of commerce. It requires a proactive approach and leadership; not the kind where a County Manager comes up with a hobby-hourse initiative, but leadership across public and private sectors working in partnership.
The Design Guidelines attached to main document are irrelevant, and sum up a problem in mind-set… its all about the big new development, an architectural statement or the big man in town who is going to come to the rescue.
Its down to political will and leadership, and a culture that either wants to aspire or play to the lowest common denominator. Some cities and towns will follow the quality route, and many will continue to wowed by the prospect of the next big thing. The Guidelines highllight the potential of Town Centre partnership and BIDs as a proactive next step…
Full post at Life After Roundabouts blog
Urb has developed The Town Centre Workshop; a day-long workshop primarily designed for local authorities and urban leaders (Ireland (ROI & NI) & UK), to kick-start thinking as a town centre partnership (or a Town Team) and progressing to actions that can be achieved. The emphasis is on making the most of existing resources, people and assets to make short-term wins and permanent gains for the town centre. More detail to follow soon. For information please contact richard@urb.ie