14/12/11…..Queen Canute or High Street Princess?

ACTION for Market Towns (AMT) has responded to the Portas Review of the future of the high street. The Review includes recommendations of ideas from AMT.

Yesterday Mary Portas published her independent review of the future of our high streets, setting out her vision to breathe economic and community life back into our high streets. The report has been welcomed by the national charity Action for Market Towns (AMT), which submitted evidence and ideas to Mary Portas? team and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

AMT?s chief executive Chris Wade said:

?AMT welcomes the Portas review and is delighted to see that so many of the ideas that we submitted to support the development of more prosperous and diverse high streets have been included in Mary?s recommendations. The report recognises the unique importance to communities of town centres – and the need to intervene and re-invent them for the 21st Century. Its rhetoric about learning from, rather than blaming, multiple retailers is realistic and we are pleased to read of the recommendation for a more level playing field through planning regulations – which AMT has long called on the Government to adapt.

?It?s good to read that Mary?s recommendations are very much in tune with AMT?s Twenty First Century Town Centres Report published recently.
The call for towns to have a Town Team: a visionary, strategic and strong operational management team – echo AMT?s evidence, having helped to establish and support many market town partnerships.

The recommendation for an explicit presumption in favour of town centre development in the wording of the National Planning Policy Framework is a suggestion that AMT put forward in our response to the draft NPPF ? ie. maintaining the ?town centres first? policy approach which means that retail and leisure developments should look for locations in town centres first, and only if suitable sites are not available look for edge of centre and then out of town centre sites.

And the suggestion that retailers should report on their support of local high streets in their annual report, links to AMT?s work on local loyalty cards, for example MyCard, a loyalty system that enables retailers to gather detailed information singularly and collectively about their retail performance and high street performance ? and rewards retailers, town centre partnerships, and consumers, too.

?The report is realistic in recognising that it will not hold back the tide in some failing High Streets but it can stem the decline in those that are still thriving. It highlights issues and draws together existing good practice often published in previous reports. Will the Government, local authorities, retailers and communities pull together this time and make these ideas work??

Action for Market Towns (AMT) is a national charity committed to the vitality and viability of our small towns.
It has a national network of members and works with Town Councils, Community and town partnerships, emerging Local Enterprise Partnerships, Local Authorities, and independent/ selected partner businesses.

It offers training, consultancy, national advocacy and a range of other services to more than 400 members.
AMT worked with a wider network of organisations to ensure that the Portas review was informed by imaginative ideas and practical solutions.

For details of the broader group of organisations involved in the town centres network, visit http://reviveourcentres.ning.com/