CALL TO ACTION
Town centre trader Kevin Horkin warns of the mirage of prosperity and calls for a Clitheroe Town Centre Task Force to put civic pride back into the borough
I’d like to preface this piece by making a confession – I’ve been a high street trader for 40 years and have had premises in Clitheroe for a third of a century. So yes, I have a vested interest as a business owner in the continuing prosperity of the town centre. However, I believe I have a broader public interest in preventing the continued visible decline of the civic infrastructure of Clitheroe, especially its pavements and road network. This was my prime motivation for standing as a borough councillor for the ward where I live – West Bradford and Grindleton.
The issue for me is the stark paradox that exists between the apparent prosperity of the Ribble Valley, which was roundly trumpeted as the borough rose to the top of the wealth league in Lancashire. I wonder whether that’s a mirage? Some of our pavements are an utter disgrace – it’s hardly a good advertisement to attract the footfall necessary to revitalise the town centre, which like Sleeping Beauty, has been asleep during the pandemic. Politicians at a higher level have for too long, been seduced by the vision of wealth and prosperity and have used it as an excuse for why Ribble Valley has not received its fair share of public funding.
Footfall is at the heart of the survival and continuing prosperity of high street businesses like my own. It isn’t just that town centres have entered a period of suspended animation as a consequence of three lockdowns, but on-line shopping now represents a much more potent challenge to the experiential shopping model. Covid has accelerated the demise of town centres as shopping destinations.
The question is, what are local authorities currently doing and what do they need to do in order to ensure that our town centres stay sustainable? Ribble Valley Borough Council has been extremely effective in delivering business support funding to businesses closed as a consequence of the pandemic. It richly deserves its accolade for being a high performing council in the Top 10 Councils in England and Wales for delivering this funding. Sleeping Beauty however, has now woken and requires care and attention. If Clitheroe town centre does not receive this care it will fall back to sleep never to be revived. The problem is that serious not least because the council is heavily dependent on business rates for its continued survival. Ribble Valley appears to be better at propping up businesses than it does in cultivating growth.
So, what needs to be done? In the book Sold Out, which started all this off, published in 2012, Bill Grimsey offered an alternative vision of the high street calling for a reinvention of town centres as community hubs. Grimsey et al called for local authorities to demonstrate the leadership required to put transformation plans in place. Town centres are a symbolic representation of community wellbeing. When you see photographs of Clitheroe town centre, one is confronted by a lack of civic pride – a bizarre chess board of uneven and badly broken, mismatched paving slabs alongside squares of poorly applied tarmac. It gives the impression of a down-at-heel town centre in comparison to the heavy investment that has gone into surrounding town centres.
You certainly wouldn’t think that Ribble Valley had risen up the league table of prosperity in Lancashire. If civic beautification and revitalisation projects are a mark of civic pride then I’m afraid Clitheroe does not compare favourably. It appears that any lobbying for funding has been unsuccessful – which is a shame because there is a large amount of social capital within the business community, but it is not being engaged with properly.
There is a real frustration on the part of local high street businesses over a lack of consultation. Relations between the Chamber of Trade and the Borough Council are frosty and there has been a failure to reach out to the FSB with whom regular events were previously held. Clitheroe Town Team last met over two years ago despite the proliferating array of video-conferencing software like Zoom and Teams. It all appears to be too much for a much-vaunted Regeneration Team.
I would encourage RVBC to start holding meetings once again with the Clitheroe Town Team, say once every four to six months, and regular surveys would give an indication of business confidence on the high street and establish a two-way dialogue on emerging issues, not least on planning, where there seems to be more concern with heritage preservation than business enterprise.
I acknowledge that there has to be a balance between the two, but not the preponderance of one to the exclusion of the other. Regular meetings and surveys would help boost trade and would also be an easy win for the Economic Development Committee, established by RVBC, which does not yet appear to have found a role despite being in existence for over three years.
It needs to be recognised that there is a danger of barriers emerging between the borough council and high street traders as the economy begins to open up. What is needed is a call to action, which removes the barriers and facilitates change quickly. This is why I am calling for the creation of a Clitheroe Town Centre Task Force made up of representatives from local business to put together a series of proposals on how the town centre should be revitalised.
Of course, none of this means anything if Ribble Valley Borough Council lacks the institutional machinery to deliver much-needed funding to where it is urgently required. What differentiates local authorities who have been able to deliver town-scape and high street renewal schemes is the large regeneration teams in-situ in places like Rossendale, Burnley, Hyndburn and Blackburn – with specialist officers who source and submit convincing bids in order to deliver projects that will have an impact. It appears that Ribble Valley is lacking in such specialist resources and regeneration funding falls on too few shoulders.
I’m an optimist and like to think that the changes that are required can happen quickly because there is a real danger that rather than being part of the levelling-up agenda there will be an irreversible levelling-down. As someone who has a love-hate relationship with local government, I’m experienced enough to know that I’ll continue to be frustrated. That won’t stop me trying however – I for one will fully embrace change to build back better.
