Learning Lunch Future of Retail: Revitalising our High Street , our Town Centres.
We held our latest Learning Lunch 10th Nov focusing on the future of retail, revitalising our high streets, town centres.
In May this year, Mary Portas was asked to do an independent review examining the future of the high street. Her report is imminent. What issues are on her radar? What challenges is she likely to put to central and local government, retailers and the public? What kind of high streets and town centres can we expect to see in the future?
The 3 speakers, Julian Dobson (www.urbanpollinators.co.uk), Mike Riddell (www.wiganplus.com)and Elizabeth Motley (www.integreatplus.com), all provided thought provoking case studies and new thinking on emerging innovative models, best and next practice and stimulating retail therapy!
Check out the learning lunch page for details. Elizabeth outlined possible future retail technical innovations involving magic mirrors for people to see how they would look in that wonderful new outfit without the hassle of the changing rooms…. My mind wandered perhaps that mirror offered hope that I might peer into one and find a comfortably fitting and fashionable Paul Smith suit………but like the remedies being put forward and searching questions being posed of the high street …. I would need to work damn hard to achieve that goal (about 8 stone…):
Our discussions ranged across the potential of moving from clone towns to distinctive places; that our town centres need to be for more than retail and in the case of the night time economy, more than just for drinkers. We acknowledged the implications of peak oil, peak land values, finite resources and low growth. However I was struck that there was a universal recognition that we needed to look for and celebrate local solutions, interventions, outcomes that was why the work of Wigan Plus was so inspirational. Also we needed to look towards what made things right for people as whole individuals not just as commodities, not just consumers. We need personalised relationships and services! Our Town centres should be places accommodating all our diverse needs. Sustaining the whole person, nurturing communities, and for Julian, in particular, any revitalising strategies should place centre stage a new take on the idea of the agora the traditional hub of civic life.
It certainly hit a chord with our audience. It also touched a feeling in the air that we collectively are looking for slow burn, long term, fine grain, and small scale solutions. To look to our own efforts, our own resources and live a life a little less toxic - detox in short after the excesses of the last 10 years!
This view was again reinforced when reading the Observer Food Monthly (13th Nov)
Responding to Stephen Fry’s tweet about a much loved Cambridge bakery potentially closing Tim Hayward and his wife Al put their money and soul in re-launching Fitzbillies, a Cambridge institution.
This inspirational account of the re-launch of Fitzbillies (www.fitzbillies.com) resonated with our Learning Lunch.
As with many people here was a couple looking again at their life –there are many life changers either jumping or being pushed out - being made redundant in response to the coalition’s headlong rush to clear our deficit in one Parliament. These life changers have been looking around at what they can do – and they have been creating amongst many other things, small food businesses in our market towns and high streets. It’s very ‘Middle Class’ but important so I must banish and put a side that ‘big chip on my shoulder’…..
…..as Tim Hayward states in his own words
‘’I don’t believe a rash of middle class, born again bakers, grocers, and shopkeepers is necessarily going to save every high street in the country, but they’re injecting capital, innovating, saving jobs and showing all the signs of having a great time doing so. Of all the new food businesses I’ve met over the last year, I don’t recall a single one that ever talked about ‘an exit strategy’, nor indeed, one who regretted their decision….Maybe this isn’t a trend ; maybe it’s just a kind of social readjustment.’’
Perhaps it’s a coincidence but the high street needs an injection of new thinking if we are to create something a kin to a new civic space for town centres. The story of Fitzbillies and our discussions with the Learning Lunch points very clearly in that direction….strategies must seek to meet the need of people to reconnect and find new ways of celebrating a love of place, civic pride
And for those who question the influence of social media in the real economy this Fitzbillies story shows how it can mobilise direct economic investment and reveal a real sense, identity and loyalty to a place……….
Any way good luck Mary Portas - as revitalising the high street touches everyone and everything it seems!
Richard Motley
Useful references: Action for Market Towns: Twenty-First Century Town Centres Report
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