The study challenges current government initiatives, such as a £210m regeneration fund announced by Andy Burnham that directs money toward physical buildings and cafes. Authors argue that upgrading building interiors is ineffective if the surrounding streetscapes remain dominated by vehicles and clutter. Instead, simple transformations like removing pedestrian guardrails and planting trees in the ground encourage active local economies. In Altrincham, Cheshire, adopting a walkable, car-free urban layout helped retail vacancies plunge from over 30% to 7% in under a decade.
Key points
Urban planners should remove unnecessary street clutter and pedestrian guardrails to crea…: Urban planners should remove unnecessary street clutter and pedestrian guardrails to create welcoming spaces that prioritize people over cars.
Repurposing vehicle parking into shared micro-mobility or outdoor dining yields far highe…: Repurposing vehicle parking into shared micro-mobility or outdoor dining yields far higher returns for local retailers than car accommodations.
Expensive building renovations risk failure if councils do not simultaneously address una…: Expensive building renovations risk failure if councils do not simultaneously address unappealing, traffic-heavy street environments outside them.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
The long decline of the high street is a problem that has gripped British governments for years. But what if there was a solution no one had considered before – doing it all on the cheap?
Spending less money is, admittedly, just one element of a report led by the urban thinktank Create Streets. But it does argue that rather than multimillion-pound revamps, a better answer could be smaller changes aimed at making town and city centres more appealing.
Central to this, the study says, is trying to banish, or at least tame, motor traffic, because too often urban centres are places “designed to be driven through, not for time to be spent in”.
As well as citing a lack of imagination, the report blames planning regulations that favour conformity and clutter and too often treat speeding cars as a given, around which everything else must adjust.
“The default high street is engineered for traffic and furnished from a catalogue: a tarmac pavement, guardrails penning people at the kerb, litter bins ordered from a procurement catalogue, a row of plastic…
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