Welcome to Strategy

Welcome to the re-launch of our ‘Strategy’ e-bulletin aimed at providing opinion-forming commentary on national policies and inviting comment and response from local strategists and regeneration activists.

I have now taken over the helm of producing the bulletin, having been employed by Action for Market Towns in February as their new Policy Manager. Before joining the charity, I was working in the Department for Communities and Local Government, in the local government division working on community empowerment.

In this month’s issue, read about AMT’s selection as a partner to deliver the Government’s Empowerment Fund for local communities, find out more about research that will help recognise the needs of different types of small towns, and check out some of the novel ways towns are looking to beat the current downturn in the economy.

We plan to issue the newsletter every three months, but in the meantime do keep a regular check on the AMT website Policy pages for news updates.

It is envisaged that whilst the newsletter will be available to all AMT members on the website, it will, in the future, be emailed only to Strategic and Partner members. We will also be sending the first two issues to some non-members who may have an interest in the issues affecting market towns.

If you are a non-member receiving this newsletter and would like to know more about Action for Market Towns membership packages, please contact Anna.McGowan@towns.org.uk.

If you have any comments on this issue, or market town policy generally, please email me at the address below.

Towns Alive - Focus on Policy Advocates and the Knowledge Hub

As part of its new Big Lottery-funded Towns Alive programme, AMT is seeking ‘Advocates’ on the ground who can inform us of policy issues from a working perspective. In return for being AMT’s eyes and ears about local policy priorities, Advocates would receive special benefits including tailored training and policy briefings. We’ll be issuing more information on our website soon, but in the meantime, please email me for further information at Alison.Eardley@towns.org.uk

As you may know, AMT successfully gained funding from the Big Lottery Fund and has launched Towns Alive, a programme designed to support and revitalise market towns and their partnerships. One element of Towns Alive is concerned with developing and influencing policy affecting market towns. AMT, as the voice for market towns, is going to be launching a Market Towns Think Tank, bringing together knowledge and expertise from a range of areas, to undertake research and debate on the future of our market towns.

We are also going to be developing the website to include a hub of information relating to market towns, so if you are looking for data or intelligence, you are just one click away from finding it.

Taking these together, AMT will be in a strong position to pre-empt conditions and feed succinctly into national policy making.

AMT will be producing Position Statements and Policy into Practice Papers on some key ‘campaign areas’ – Prosperous places (economy); rural services; affordable housing and community-led planning. The first Position Statement is available online on the subject of Town Centre Retail and sets out how AMT, incorporating the views of you the members, believe town centres should be addressed in the policy context.

We’ll turn these position statements into practical tools for you too, with our ‘Policy into Practice’ papers, highlighting actual examples of how policy works in our market towns. You can view our paper on Prosperous Places which gives a range of best practice case studies on how to improve the economic vitality of your town.

For more information on the advocate scheme, the think tank, or our policy papers, please contact me at Alison.Eardley@towns.org.uk

For more information on the Towns Alive programme please click on the link below:

Towns Alive Overview

Empowerment Funding Success

AMT is one of 21 organisations out of over 150 who have been successfully awarded a share of the £9.25 million Empowerment Fund.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears made the announcement on 1 April 2009. The fund is designed to help third sector organisations with a national reach to deliver aspects of the Communities in Control: real people, real power .

AMT has been awarded a grant of £250,000 over three years. This money will be used to transform the capability, capacity and reach of community-based town partnerships and planning, by increasing the impact of AMT's work and forging direct links to policy-makers. We intend to direct the fund to the delivery of various aspects of the new Towns Alive (TA) programme.

For more information about the Empowerment Fund, including details of the other successful organisations, please visit the link below:

Towards a Typology of Market Towns

Many of you have already discovered the value of benchmarking the development and performance of your towns against other market towns. AMT is currently supporting a project that will take this a step further and enable towns to be mapped according to their characteristics into one of eight ‘types’.

John Shepherd, Professor of Geography at Birkbeck College, University of London, is undertaking research which examines the extent to which settlements with between 1,500 and 40,000 population can be classified by socio-economic type and the presence or absence of a range of facilities.

He introduced his ‘work in progress’ at a recent event that was organised jointly by AMT and the Welland Market Towns Group and held in Oakham, Rutland on the 27 March. Over 50 delegates attended from around the country, including market town partners and local authority economic development officers. Roger Turner, Head of Economies at the Commission for Rural Communities, presented the first session with a thought-provoking look at how market towns are currently represented within national policy. He went on to examine the impact of the recession and how market towns might improve their response to it.

Professor Shepherd then talked about the market town typologies that he is developing, and how such a tool might be a useful way for small towns to work together to influence policy at the national level. In the afternoon, delegates worked in small groups to discuss the themes and identify potential future development.

Following the feedback from the event, Professor Shepherd will be producing a short paper which will:

1. Describe the thinking behind typology
system of small towns (those with a
population of 1500 to 40,000) and how it
has been put together, including details of
the 8 cluster types;

2. Outline how such a typology might be used
in practice; and

3. Incorporate both national and regional maps
which show towns by type, so that towns
can see, at a glance, who their ‘like-towns’
are.

For more information about the market town typology work, please visit the website below, which gives an overview of the event.

Empty Shops Revival Plan

Do you have shops standing empty in your town?

Catherine Hammant, chairman of AMT, was invited to an event focusing on town centres led by the Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP, Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government and the Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP, Secretary of State for Dept for Culture, Media & Sport.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears is championing a new scheme to tackle recession in the high street by encouraging communities to convert empty premises into community spaces such as social enterprises, local art displays or learning centres. New Government measures and up to £3 million have been announced, with new provisions to include: special planning application waivers, standard interim-use leases and temporarily leasing shops to councils.

The event was used to gather views from a whole range of stakeholders as well as to launch a practical guide aimed at practitioners who are working to make sure that town centres reach their full potential.

For example councils can use licensing powers positively to permit things like farmers markets that bring local produce to the high street. North Lincolnshire District Council is one authority who has recently started a monthly market at the weekends to do just this.

Take a look at the new guide by clicking on the link below:

Tackling the Recession

A new piece of research is being undertaken by the Commission for Rural Communities in partnership with amt-i and Centre for Local Economic Strategies . This will examine how market towns are coping with the recession, and will have a number of elements:

- Understanding the problem - Online surveys to market towns to understand their issues and gather information;

- In-depth study – using the Typology approach to identify 10 market towns to examine in detail over the next 6-10 months; and

- Communicating ‘coping tactics’ and solutions – developing case studies of strategies that work to combat the economic downturn and ommunicating these through the AMT website, the AMT Annual Convention and other correspondence.

Help us by taking part in our online survey. We will keep you informed of progress on the project via our website, and the CRC will be including data from the survey in one of their monthly reports to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the National Economic Council.

Call for Government to unlock funds

In light of the ongoing recession, the Local Government Association (LGA) is calling for the government to direct millions of pounds into smaller scale council-led projects. Unlike large scale national infrastructure scheme, they believe that smaller projects can begin immediately creating thousands of jobs

Of particular note to market towns, the LGA is calling for a £100m scheme to give town centres a 'facelift', - improving shopping areas and making local areas safer – which would create or safeguard 60,000 jobs.

They also want to see a radical overhaul of tax breaks for small businesses that would see them receive an estimated £100 million of rate relief automatically that currently goes unclaimed.

For more information on the LGA's proposals, please see the webpage below:

RSN bid

AMT has joined forces with the Rural Services Network to undertake a piece of research about delivering cost effective rural services. Over the next year, the research will encompass a number of elements including:

- Developing an agreed framework for categorising community-led planning material so that it is aligned with ongoing RSN research and the Local Area Agreement thematic groups;

- Preparing a document on trends and policy issues in relation to service provision in market towns;

- Reviewing current and emerging community-led planning approaches (including the Market Towns Healthscan) to assess their fitness for purpose; and

- Developing guidance on how techniques such as the market town healthscan and performance indicators can be used to assess service need and provision, to influence the work of local authority and other service providers.

As part of the work, we will be looking to identify potential partners amongst local and unitary authorities that we can work with to develop examples of good practice in the delivery of a range of services in market towns.

It is hoped that following this initial research, and once partners have been identified, a joint bid to the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership may be developed to undertake further work.

Find out more about the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs) by clicking on the link below:

The New Healthcheck - Market Town Action Plan Framework

Action for Market Towns is currently finalising a revised and improved version of the Market Town Healthcheck as part of one of our key campaigns on community-led planning. It will encourage users of the scheme to understand their town, by undertaking surveys and observing activity in the town.

The revised version will make reference to the typology work and will enable market towns to assess their needs in order to plan how best to take forward future improvements. The key strength of the approach taken by the Town Action Planning Framework is that like the previous MTI Healthcheck, it is evidence based, collecting feedback and facts to create necessary evidence to back up bids for funding.

A new element to the process is called
‘Townwatch’, which will include an ongoing monitoring of core facts about the town, gathered on-line and from other data sources.

The two elements, when taken together, will provide the basis for an ongoing understanding of how your town operates and develops over time, in order to understand the kinds of policies you might want to put in place to achieve your vision for the town.

Find out more about the proposals on our website or by contacting amt-i at the email address below:

Traditional Markets Inquiry

The Communities and Local Government Committee is undertaking an inquiry into traditional retail markets. The inquiry is considering covered and uncovered markets, including specialist markets (e.g. farmers markets) serving local people in English urban and rural towns and cities. In particular it is examining how traditional markets are faring today, their social and economic effects, how their potential might be realised, and planning and licensing issues.

We asked you to tell us your thoughts and responded to the inquiry on behalf of market towns.

Download AMT's response

There will be an oral evidence session on Monday 20 April. There is also a web forum for market traders and others to give their views on what can be done to improve current arrangements for supporting and maintaining traditional markets serving local communities. The committee has already visited two London markets as part of its inquiry. The web forum will run until 28 April 2009.

Visit Inquiry Webforum

For more information on the inquiry, and to sign up to regular updates, please visit the link below.

Sustainable Communities Act

On 23rd October 2007 the Sustainable Communities Act became law with full cross-party support. The Act sets up a new process where local communities and their local authorities (including county councils) can drive central government policy and action on reversing community decline and promoting local sustainability. This can be focussed on four areas:

1. Local economies - promoting local shops, local businesses, local public services and local jobs;
2. Environment - promoting local renewable energy, protecting green spaces
3. Social inclusion - protecting local public services and alleviating fuel poverty and food poverty; and
4. Democratic involvement - promoting local people participating in local decision making.

The Act also states that central Government must publish the local spending reports containing detailed accounts of all public money spent (by local and central government), broken down by local area. These are intended to enable people to map the flow of public funding through an area. CLG is currently consulting on how these local spending reviews might be put in place.

Download CLG's Consultation document.

We recommend that you encourage your local authority to respond by the 15 May deadline.
The first round of ‘opting in’ to the Act was in October 2008, but it is envisaged that local authorities will have another opportunity to take part in October 2009, and on an annual basis from then on.

The Local Government Association (LGA) has been appointed as the national ‘selector’ body to assess and short-list proposals made by councils under the Act. Proposals from the final short-list are then decided on by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, after consultation with the LGA as selector.

If you want to hear more about the Act, the LGA is hosting a Sustainable Communities Act conference on 10 June 2009. This will provide an opportunity for councils and other interested organisations to discuss the potential of the act and share ideas for proposals.

For more information generally on the Sustainable Communities Act, visit the link below.

Conservatives unveil Housing policy

What are the Conservative’s plans for housing?

Grant Shapps, Shadow Minister for Housing, has published a series of radical new housing policies that are designed to promote social opportunity and neighbourhood pride. He states that the paper, entitled ‘Strong Foundations’, aims to ensure that local homes are built for local people, with the community – not bureaucrats in Whitehall – having the final say on the homes they want.

The proposals include:

Supporting the low-cost housing sector – measures will include strengthening shared ownership schemes so that those on intermediate incomes can part-own their home;

Local Housing Trusts - villages and towns will be able to create entirely new community-led bodies with planning powers to develop local homes for local people, provided there is strong community backing;

Breaking the monopoly on empty government property - local people will have new powers to demand the selling of empty or under-used government property; and

Stopping the Whitehall imposition of unwanted development - regional planning will be scrapped, enabling councils to revise their plans to protect Green Belt land and prevent the unwanted imposition of so-called eco-towns.

Download the full paper at the link below:

Living Places - Sport and Culture for all

On Tuesday 31 March, a set of guidance, backed by Government, was launched to help regeneration professionals to build culture and sport into regeneration projects and new housing developments.

‘Living Places’ is a public sector partnership with members including the Arts Council England, CABE, CLG, DCMS, the Museums Libraries and Archives Council, English Heritage and Sport England. The partnership believe that everyone should benefit from the arts, sport, public space, heritage, museums, libraries and archives, the built environment and the creative industries, regardless of where they live.

Together with the Town and Country Planning Association, Living Spaces has developed a culture and sport planning toolkit. The Culture, Sport and Planning Toolkit (CSPT), available at Culture and Sport Toolkit sets out a simple five-stage process to build culture and sport into places. It includes a wealth of information, best practice case studies and planning tools. Users can learn from the experience of others and base their own development plans on the processes and principles that have succeeded elsewhere.

If you are in a town where regeneration or new-build is being planned, make sure you take the opportunity to bring the new toolkit to the attention of the planning and regeneration officers involved.

For more information, visit the website for Living Places below.

Inspiring Communities Fund

The Government has announced a new fund of £10 million designed to raise the aspirations and educational attainment of young people. Inspiring Communities is a joint initiative, stemming from the New Opportunities White Paper, between CLG, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Cabinet Office.

Neighbourhood communities have been invited by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears to apply for a grant of up to £450,000 to spend over two years. Projects should deliver activities that benefit young people, their parents and communities, to create new opportunities and broaden horizons.

Applications must include a third sector partner and must be submitted by 3 June 2009.

15 successful projects will be announced 12 weeks after the application deadline.

Find out more about the fund, including links to the application pack, at the link below.

Inspiring Communities Fund

AMT National Convention 13-14 October 2009

A date for your diaries! Our Annual National Convention will be taking place in the historic Leicestershire market town of Melton Mowbray this year on 13 and 14 October.

Located in the heart of the East Midlands, the town’s market, which dates back over 1000 years, is a magnet for visitors from around the world wishing to purchase Stilton cheese and Pork Pies – the town has just achieved EU Protected Designation of Origin status for its Pork Pies!

Melton Mowbray is one of the 14 Welland market towns, and there will be the opportunity to share their extensive experience in benchmarking and community-led planning through a series of study tours at the convention.

A full listing of guest speakers, plenary sessions and workshops will be available on our website shortly. To catch up on last year’s convention, please visit the webpage below.

National Market Town Awards 2009

Could YOUR town and YOUR project be a winner in the 2009 National Market Town Awards?

Entries are invited for these prestigious awards from towns throughout England for projects completed between April 2008 and March 2009. You will first compete on a regional level in the following categories:

Environment and Culture
Social and Community
Business and Economy
Partnership and Strategic Working

The winner of each of the categories will be asked to give a 10 minute powerpoint presentation at a regional event in the summer. One of the four category winners will receive the additional accolade of the region’s “Best Market Town Project”. The projects of the winners of the four categories, and the overall winner, will be written up and published as Best Practice Case Studies.

Each Regional Best Market Town Project will then go forward to the national judging panel. The regional winners will also be invited to give a presentation about their project at the Action for Market Towns National Annual Convention in Melton Mowbray in October 2009, where the overall national winner will be announced at a gala dinner.

Whilst the awards are organised by Action for Market Towns – the national membership organisation for market towns – your town does not have to be in membership to enter a project.

The closing date for entries is 22 May 2009 – so take a look at the information pack today.

Check out the weblink below to find out more information and to download an application pack. You will also find details of last year’s winners to give you inspiration.

The downturn in the economy has impacted on all sectors of the community, and market towns are not exempt. High street stores have closed, businesses are cutting back on staff and the general public are spending less as belts are tightened.

But it’s not all bad news...some market towns are facing the challenges head on and finding new ways to beat the credit crunch and get people back out into town and spending in the shops and restaurants.

Here are just a few examples, from around the country, to inspire you and prove that even in the bleakest of times, working together can achieve real results:

The Oxfordshire Town of Wantage is smartening up the town, including putting up posters inside empty shop fronts to make them look more appealing – while a new owner is sought for the Woolworth’s store, posters of the iconic Vale horse are now on display.

The historic town of Stourbridge in the West Midlands has become the latest market town to offer a new card scheme to local shoppers. The buylocal2u guaranteed discount card aims to encourage shoppers back into Stourbridge town centre. It works in a similar way as a loyalty card but instead of points, gives customers guaranteed discounts when they shop with local businesses using their card.

Crewkerne in South Somerset has played host to a series of one-to-one advice sessions for local businesses. The District Council have brought together experts to speak to businesses to advise them on funding opportunities and diversification as ways of bringing in additional income.

For more examples of what you can do to beat the credit crunch, take a look at our Good Practice Case Studies on the AMT website.

If you are undertaking any inventive schemes in your town, let us know by emailing Strategy.

Call for market town Advocates

Are you interested in helping change the way the Government and its agencies address market towns in their policy? Do you have experience and expertise on how market towns operate and what works and what doesn't? Do you represent the interests of one or more market towns?

If this sounds like you, then please get in touch with me as we are on the look out for Market Town Advocates who we can call on to assist us in getting information from the grassroots level to input into our campaign areas.

We will be offering rewards in return, such as access to free tailored training.

For more information, contact Alison Eardley at the email address below.