New challenges for town centres

Successful town centres are at the heart of the concept of sustainable communities and have a key role to play in providing places in which people want not only to work, shop and seek entertainment but also, increasingly, to live. there are now more than 500 UK town and city centres with pro-active management initiatives in place and yet many still face a challenge as they seek to meet the needs and desires of their communities.

In the US, this challenge is being sharpened by the development of new ‘lifestyle’ centres. We are seeing the early signs of similar moves here. New centres are being created that have an urban feel, mix of uses, quality environments and which integrate traditional downtown activities and features. Many are aiming to create what Jane Jacobs, in the Death and life of Great American cities, called the “intricate sidewalk ballet” that makes downtowns attractive places to visit.

Can these lifestyle centres become new town centres? In principle, there is no reason why new town centres cannot be formed today. It has happened throughout our history, in both a planned and unplanned way. We would suggest though that there is a dual hurdle to pass: is the centre performing as a de facto town centre and does it necessarily follow that it should then be so regarded in planning terms?

Defining town centres
How do we determine whether a new location has become a town centre? We believe this must ultimately be done through the proper planning process but from our experience we think there are some basic criteria that have to be met. PPS6 and the newly issued SPP8 in Scotland bothrefer to ‘Vital and Viable town centres: Meeting the challenge’ (URBED – for the Department of the Environment, HMSO 1994). This report notes that:

“Most people’s idea of a town centre is a place that enables a wide range of needs to be met through one trip.”
We think this provides a starting point for a definition of a de facto town centre and we would suggest that a centre needs to be:

- A retailing centre that serves the needs of the local community (offering both independent and multiple retailing);
- A place with a leisure, entertainment and cultural facilities (eg pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, venues, museums, tourist attractions);
- A public (eg libraries, courts, job centres, local authority services) and private sector (eg estate agents, solicitors, accountants, banking and finance) service centre;
- An employment and business centre (beyond employment in just retail and leisure);
- Truly accessible by a choice of means of transport (including walking); and
- Perceived by the local community as their town centre, a place with which they associate (and hopefully take pride) and which they can freely access at all times.

Whether a centre is in fact successful or not is determined by many other factors that active town centre management is engaged in: does the centre have the right appeal for its community base? Is it an attractive and well-maintained centre? Is there the right information available about the centre and the choices it offers? Is it a safe place to visit? And so on.

The fact that new centres are being developed which are designed to perform as town centres should provide yet further incentive for stakeholders in existing centres to take action now to ensure their centre survives and ultimately prospers. We are currently working with eight smaller town and district centres who are piloting innovative approaches to town centre management as well as distilling good practice from across Europe.