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You and Yours: High Street Revival

03/01/2022

High Street Revival

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, High Street Revival

New research on how our high streets have changed and how they might look in the future.

Research done exclusively for You and Yours reveals that new independent businesses are transforming the way our high streets look and what we use them for.

It's a decade since the retail expert Mary Portas was brought in by the Government to save our high streets. Ten years on, research done exclusively for You and Yours by the Local Data Company, reveals that new independent businesses are transforming the way our high streets look and what we use them for.

Presenter Sam Fenwick visits three different towns in England - Stockton-on- Tees, Bedford and Margate -  to find out what how their high streets have been revived.

Ten years ago, the towns were really struggling when Mary Portas was brought in to save them. The three  towns were part of a select group of 12 picked by the Government in 2012 to become Portas Towns, each benefitting from £100,000 in funding and specialist help in turning them round.

Over the last ten years, You and Yours has been monitoring how the 12 original Portas towns have progressed and how their successes and failures reflect more widely what's been happening in towns across the UK.

In this episode Sam hears from business owners at the heart of the struggle to survive along with leading figures in the towns about what they're doing to make them more vibrant and relevant to their individual local communities.

She also catches up with Mary Portas, ten years on from her High Street review, to hear how she thinks the towns have changed and how they need to adapt to survive the pandemic and plan for the future.

Cathy Parker, Professor of Retail at Enterprise at Manchester Metropolitan University and the research lead on the Government's High Streets Task Force, tells Sam her vision for the High Street and the factors that are most likely to help a town thrive.


Presenter: Sam Fenwick
Producer: Tara Holmes

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