“It just feels like a really important time to be having these positive but also very practical conversations about our high streets.”
So, reflecting on another insightful, inspiring, heartening day with HighStreetPositives LIVE.
Hosting a three-hour event with 8 panellists, 3 speakers, a ‘fireside chat’, intro and reflections sections, and a head full of questions, timings etc, means it’s taken a little longer to draw out takeaways than the many shared here already over the last 24 hours or so.
Lots of great stuff happening in Bath and neighbour towns but also in a number of other places that contributors spoke about, projects and initiatives to learn from and tailor or adjust so they work in your town or city centre.
For me – along with a number of individual ideas to pick up with colleagues in the days ahead – two things stood out.
First a sense that in the conversations before, on the walking tours, at the break, after we’d closed and in messages since, there’ll be a huge amount built on this in a way it’s harder to do via the online version. So I’m glad that for all the plusses of Teams calls and the like, we still make time to meet IRL.
Second – and this was especially encouraging thinking about our tackling #highstreet vacancy work and the emphasis we put on having a ‘place partnership’ on the case. How much better, stronger, quicker and more sustainably we make progress working together.
In that room – and clearly very much part of the Bath story – we had attendees from business and community, council colleagues, the BID, creative, cultural & heritage organisations and importantly (as they’re often missed out of ‘town board’ type conversations) agents and landlords, as well as a range of specialists who bring particular skill sets to the table.
Not everywhere has this kind of positive, proactive ‘place partnership’ (yet…!) and it’s something we’d love to see become the norm.
It’d be great to hear positive working together examples from your places…
Thanks Laura Harris, thanks to everyone who played a part in a(nother) memorable day…!
