" />What broke the town centre in the first place?
In the 90s, the rise of supermarkets and retail parks outside town meant that small, independent producers and retailers in town centres started to struggle and left. From here the only people that could afford to take these sites became big brand retailers who could justify the property cost per square foot, often joining multiple smaller units together. This changed vibrant high streets into identikit copies of one another, with the same brands in every town. When online shopping became dominant in the 2010’s, the same big brand retailers started to vacate these units, leaving behind large spaces that are unaffordable for smaller independents.
Those smaller independents are still there, but now they’re trading out of their garages, kitchens, or living rooms. We need them back in the town centres.
How can we fix it?
Whenever town centres come up, the same solution gets wheeled out: events.
Food festivals. Artisan markets. Christmas lights. Pop-up weekends designed to “bring people back into town”.
And to be fair — the instinct isn’t wrong. But it skips the most important bit.
The why.
Events aren’t the answer. They’re the trigger.
People say town centres need events because they intuitively understand this chain:
- Events create footfall
- Footfall creates customers
- Customers create vibrancy
- Vibrancy attracts… more customers
That circular loop is real — but it has a brutal catch.
It doesn’t start itself.
Vibrancy only works when there are enough people for it to feel alive. Below that threshold, nothing compounds. Above it, everything does.
Think of it like lighting a fire. You don’t just need a spark — you need tinder. Enough activity, enough reasons to be there, enough people who actually care.
That’s where most town-centre strategies fall apart.
Why local businesses matter more than national chains
If you want residents to care about a place, you need to fill it with people who care about it.
Local business owners care because:
- It’s their livelihood
- Their reputation is personal
- Their success is tied directly to the place itself
National chains don’t work like that. They’re built on repetition, brand familiarity, and distance. There are layers of decision-makers between the shop floor and the town it sits in — and none of them live above it.
Local operators do.
Want safer town centres?
Fill them with owners who will fiercely defend their business because it’s their life’s work.
Want better atmosphere?
Put people behind the counter who actually give a damn.
Vibrancy has to last all day — not just in bursts
A town centre that works from 11am–3pm but dies at night will be taken over by undesirables in the evening.
One that works at night but is dead during the day feels dangerous and hollow.
Real vibrancy:
- Runs all day
- Spans different audiences
- Encourages overlap
And critically — it requires shared spaces.
People don’t just come to buy things. They come to talk about:
- The bread they bought
- The record they found
- The match they watched
- The band they’re seeing later
This is why the solution isn’t a scattergun of isolated units. It’s a hub.
The Hub Model: One place, many reasons to be there
The fix looks like this:
- A mixed-use public space
- Surrounded by locally based producers, retailers, and suppliers
- Designed to give people multiple reasons to visit at different times
Because here’s the unavoidable truth:
Customers = revenue
Revenue = viable businesses
And viability is dictated by property costs.
High property costs require high revenue.
High revenue requires consistent footfall.
No footfall means no one takes the lease — not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t.
At every stage, the question should be:
Why aren’t people taking these units on?
The answer is almost always affordability — real or perceived.
So the response has to be:
- Give them enough customers to make it work
- Educate them on how it can work
- Provide a safety net if it doesn’t
And surely, for an initial period at least, a full unit paying no rates is better than an empty one paying none?
The endgame (because there has to be one)
Let’s be honest about whycentral and local government (and landlords) should be doing any of this:
- To attract businesses that can pay full property costs
- To increase house prices and council tax justification
- To generate sustainable business rates income over time
Local businesses aren’t the end goal.
They’re the enablers.
A real example: Why places like town centre X struggle
Big and affluent retail brands leave – why?
- Not enough revenue to pay the property costs
- Because not enough affluent customers
- Because the town centre isn’t attractive
- Because the right people aren’t using it all day
- Because there’s no reason to go there
Why not?
Shopping moved:
- Online
- To retail parks
- To out-of-town supermarkets
- To better-connected cities
So the answer cannot just be “more shops”.
It has to be:
New reasons for the right people to visit — at all times of day.
What actually works now
Things you can’t get online or at a retail park:
- Independent producers
- Hospitality
- Leisure
- Nightlife
- Experiential socialising
The problem?
These uses:
- Generally generate less revenue per square foot than retail
- Cost more to operate per square foot than retail
Unless things are shared.
The structural fix: Shared cost, shared risk
The most effective model is a Community Interest Company running a large destination venue — think a town-centre BOXPARK, but permanent and purposeful.
Inside it:
- Local producers on turnover rents and business rates paid on a proportion of profit
- Rent includes services, utilities, storage, seating, toilets
- Access to government purchasing rates via charity status
- No massive structural rebuild — just better use of what’s already there
The result?
- Lower risk for operators
- Higher chance of survival
- A critical mass of activity
Which is exactly what attracts the bigger, full-rate-paying brands later.
Choosing the right mix (this is the bit everyone misses)
This isn’t about how busy places are now.
Nothing is busy now — that’s the problem.
It’s about how busy they should be.
You deliberately select businesses whose peak times complement each other, so the area averages “busy enough” all day.
The goal isn’t 10/10 intensity — it’s a consistent 7.
From breakfast through late evening.
Measuring what’s broken — properly
Instead of endless resident surveys (“What do you want here?”), create a simple scoring system:
Quality (premium → poor)
Independence (local → national)
Category mix:
- Hospitality (day vs evening)
- Leisure
- Entertainment
- Education
- Consumable retail
Then compare it to towns that actually work.
The gaps tell you exactly:
- Why the town centre is failing
- What needs to change
No guesswork. No vibes. No pointless consultations asking people to imagine something they’ve never experienced.
Start small. Think big. Build properly.
Local businesses aren’t a nice-to-have.
They’re the ignition system.
Create a hub.
Incubate safely.
Plan for scale.
Do that, and vibrancy stops being something you try to manufacture — it becomes something the town sustains itself.
