Holmfirth high street gets improvement strategy
Holmfirth’s high street needs to engage diverse groups of people and combine leadership and partnerships with local knowledge to address issues it may face, according to a new report.
Recommendations from retail and place management experts at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Institute of Place Management (IPM) feature in a new government report, High Street Report, outlining new approaches to supporting the transformation of high streets and town centres.
The report was commissioned to support the work of the Minister for the High Street, Jake Berry, and the Expert Panel appointed to look at the future of the high street.
The IPM organised six consultations with local high street users in Holmfirth, Altrincham, Bristol, Shrewsbury, Aldershot and at the Teenage Market in Bolton.
Cathy Parker, co-chair of the IPM and professor of marketing and retail enterprise at Manchester Metropolitan, said: “The High Street Report is a vital step in identifying the way forward for regenerating town and city centres. This is dependent on local leadership and partnership working that engages a broad spectrum of people locally.”
Simon Quin, who also co-chairs the IPM, added: “We are very grateful to our members, along with members of The BID Foundation who brought together over 200 local stakeholders to discuss the future of town centres and inform the Government’s final publication.”
Dr Steve Millington, a director of the IPM and principal investigator for the project, also said: “The High Street 2030 report details the findings of our individual evidence sessions and concludes that we should not be looking to create identikit high streets. There is no one solution.
“The workshops we undertook with a range of stakeholders showed the variation in different towns, the stages they are at and the different issues they are facing.
“The fact that high streets are subject to so many forces of change means we cannot just hope for the best. Our report demonstrates that local action can be very effective and, using the evidence collected in the workshops, we have been able to present some ideas that can help all places.”
Recommendations from the High Street Report and the IPM’s High Street 2030 report are expected to be taken forward by the government’s new High Streets Task Force.
The Task Force will work in conjunction with the £675m Future High Street Fund, which was announced in the 2018 Autumn Budget, to help town centres plan better spaces for their communities.
