It’s not quite City Challenge. And it’s not Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, despite the offer of a "golden ticket". But on Saturday the Government unveiled that a £1 million fund aimed to revitalising the High Streets of twelve towns or cities. Housing Minister Grant Shapps has even made a YouTube video about it.
We’ve stated our position on the Portas Review in previous posts. In essence, the High Street is only one part of a strong city centre. So any efforts to boost the High Street are likely to be hamstrung if retail is the only reason for people to go to the city centre.
Even setting aside the scepticism about the approach, the money set aside for the "Portas Pilots" is fairly small beer - £1 million spread amongst twelve places isn’t going to go very far. The fundamental issue that these places face is that they do not have consistent footfall to support retail. And they are unlikely to be fixed with £80,000 to improve the appearance of some shop fronts or setting up a weekly market. We’ll be addressing these issues in forthcoming work which looks to build on last year’s partner city report on Preston.
In the meantime, interested applicants have until 30 March to submit their application (which also requires the submission of a YouTube video) to be in with a chance of winning a "golden ticket".
They will need more than a bit of cash to change a lot of them. Start up and pop-ups need a change in regulation, and £80,000 wont go anywhere towards improving the public realm/limited the impact of traffic. Perhaps a mixed approach of cutting red tape, relaxing planning laws to show that it's not just money being thrown at it and overlooking the bigger issues preventing high streets becoming lively, affordable centres for the community.
Also, a very depressing video - He could have chosen somewhere that has gone through the transformation, such as Brixton village rather than just a depressing place like Harlow or which ever standard post-war new town he was in. They can change, but why not use the video to highlight where it's been successful.
Posted by: I Ralph | February 07, 2012 at 11:14 AM