Research outlines key strategies for successful town centres

Having a strong independent retail offering, year-round cultural events and family-friendly activities are key to sustaining successful town centres in the future, according to a new survey published by the Institute of Economic Development (IED) and Lichfields.

While 92% of economic development and regeneration professionals surveyed confirmed that town centre vacancy rates have increased in the past five years, 49% say they are positive or very positive about the prospects of town centres strengthening their position and offer.

The survey revealed that leisure and culture, food and drink, and independent retail are very important to drive footfall in town centres, and the respondents thought filling vacant space with independent retail and leisure and culture offerings was best.

When asked about underpinning strategies for supporting successful town centres of the future, a strong independent retail offer (52%), a year-round programme of cultural events (48%) and family-friendly activities (45%) are perceived to be “very important”. Also scoring highly as weighted averages are improvements to the built environment and public realm, and broader economic development interventions to raise the prosperity of the local area.

Ross Lillico, Economics Director at Lichfields, said: ‘The impact of Covid-19 on town centres has obviously caught the headlines, but this has simply accelerated longer-term shifts in the way people use and interact with town centres. Both the Future High Streets Fund and the Towns Fund recognise that financial support is needed to deliver positive change by ensuring a greater diversity of uses and repurposing vacant spaces.

‘The value of this survey is it provides on-the-ground intelligence from economic development and regeneration professionals on key strategies for underpinning successful town centres of the future. It suggests that practitioners do not consider some of the tools and levers available to them to be effective as policy-makers might have hoped. That said, there is clearly a sense of positivity in the survey responses regarding the future outlook.’

Nigel Wilcock, Executive Director of the IED, added: ‘This research has identified some clear priorities for the future of town centres and approaches to driving footfall, repurposing vacant space and overall place management.

‘We have already run successful CPD sessions on the future of town centres with Lichfields which explored some of the issues and opportunities facing town centres as the economy emerges from the aftermath of Covid-19 and examined the tools available to local authorities to support their evolution. Developing the right interventions and approaches to delivering change were part of that programme, and with the knowledge we now have from this survey we will feed this into our next round of professional development activities.’

In related news, funding for shopfront improvements on Glasgow’s High Street and Saltmarket is available from Glasgow City Council’s Independent Retail Fund (IRF).

Photo by Liv Cashman