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IHBC Chair David McDonald said: \u2018I\u2019m delighted that the IHBC could help support this APPG\u2019s briefing on communities and heritage regeneration.\u00a0 It is the best possible first follow-up to build on the issues and opportunities we\u2019ve helped pinpoint in the APPG\u2019s Inquiry exploring \u2018The Value of Heritage<\/em><\/a>\u2019, published last December.\u2019<\/p>\n IHBC Director Se\u00e1n O\u2019Reilly said: \u2018As well as being the professional body for built and historic environment conservation specialists, the IHBC is a charity that has public interest at its heart.\u00a0 So the theme is central to our concerns, and frames our work from the most fundamental practice standards to our current explorations around a petition for charter.\u2019<\/p>\n David Blackman, consultant to the IHBC Secretariat, writes:\u00a0The topic of the public meeting of the APPG, which took place on July 12 at the House of Commons, was Regenerating Historic High Streets: Lessons Learned<\/em>.<\/p>\n Owain Lloyd-James, Interim Strategy and Listing Director at Historic England (HE), outlined progress on the High Street Heritage Action Zone (HAZ) programme, which is due to finish in April next year.\u00a0 He said the outputs of the programme, which is run by HE with \u00a395m of government funding, included bringing back to use vacant or under used commercial floor space, creating residential units and restoring or reinstating shop front.<\/p>\n He said that while the selection of HAZs across the country had predated the introduction of the government\u2019s levelling up agenda, they had \u2018clearly coalesced\u2019 with the priority areas identified by the government programme.<\/p>\n The programme\u2019s \u2018keyword\u2019 is sustainable, Lloyd-James said: \u2018We want those to be better places after we’ve left and long after we\u2019ve stopped investing.\u00a0 \u2018This change has to be sustainable and that’s the intention: to change outcomes over the long term.\u2019<\/p>\n Community-based organisations, involved in running HAZs, were often able to focus on delivering in a way that local authorities with other priorities, especially during the pandemic, were not, he said: \u2018When we leave each of those places, those places have increased capacity to carry on delivering, which is what we’ve seen in Coventry. We stopped funding but that doesn’t mean the work stopped.\u2019<\/p>\n Ian Tomlinson, of the For Tyldesley HAZ , said his body\u2019s high street design guide had been developed with the community, including contributions from traders, residents and young people.<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s very important to get young people involved, because this is going to be their town. they\u2019re going to look after it in in the future,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n Tomlinson added that his role in the HAZ had greatly benefitted from being embedded in the Greater Manchester town.<\/p>\n \u2018I’ve lived there 30 years so it’s not as a 9 to 5 job. I know all the folks at the local restaurants and there are constant questions. It sometimes takes 40 minutes to walk down the street because everybody\u2019s asking questions.\u2019<\/p>\n Dave Chetwyn, Managing Director of Urban Vision Enterprise CIC\/ Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC) told the meeting that where town centres have developed a residential population, it\u2019s been \u2018game changing\u2019 diversification had also contributed to successful high street regeneration.\u00a0 It’s no longer retail, it’s the whole offer.\u2019<\/p>\n Vicky Payne, Strategy, Research and Engagement Lead at the Quality of Life Foundation and author of a recently published book on the future of the high street.<\/p>\n She said: \u2018The current crisis is a crisis of big retail not of the high street typology itself. We think that the high street can be about much more than the retail, that it can achieve this shift and thrive over the coming decades.\u2019<\/p>\n There’s no great demand at the moment for out of town centre uses, but it’s still very important to have that focus on town centres.\u00a0 Town centres can be the focus for all sorts of uses, not just retail, they are inherently connected and sustainable places.\u2019<\/p>\n Duncan Wilson, chief executive of HE, said a common theme of the most successful HAZ projects has been a champion locally who is not from the local authority and has pushed them.<\/p>\n \u2018The risk is if that person disappears with no succession plan, the project will drift off. That dynamic working with but not in local authorities is critical to successful projects, but there is also that risk that the organisation may not be as large and robust, therefore we need to make sure there is a succession plan and another way forward.\u2019<\/p>\n James Grundy MP, the chair of the APPG, said that getting the community in the driving seat is key.<\/p>\n \u2018If you have a local authority led project you get the project the local authority wants and if it’s community led, you get the project the community wants projects and that’s what gives it the robustness and stability.<\/p>\n \u2018I very much expect that Tyldesley will be a fully regenerated town and they’ll have the community itself to thanks, and Ian and everybody who\u2019s been involved in it because it’s grass roots up rather than top down.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018If the community is behind the project it will succeed, because people will want it to succeed.\u2019<\/p>\n See more on the IHBC-supported CPP APPG HERE<\/a> and more background to the linked Inquiry report and launch HERE<\/a><\/p>\n For more on chartering See the link to our bespoke Petition for Charter page<\/a>, and while members are encouraged to COMPLETE THE CHARTER SURVEY<\/a><\/p>\n\u2026\u2018game changing\u2019 diversification\u2026<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n
\u2026 crisis of big retail not of the high street typology\u2026<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n