Economic growth may be debated in Westminster and measured in national statistics, but it is felt locally. Now in our fourth year of Let’s Celebrate Towns – an initiative that allows local leaders to nominate projects in their communities for the chance to be awarded £20,000 – we have seen first hand what happens when businesses, communities and local institutions work together to turn local ambition into economic opportunity
Authored by Rob Cameron, Group Country Manager, UK & Ireland at Visa, and Mandy Beech, Group Director of Retail Services at Nationwide Building Society.
For the past four years, Let’s Celebrate Towns has taken Visa, and now Nationwide, into communities across the country to back the people and businesses working to make their high streets thrive. Much of what we have seen through our initiative rarely features in national conversations about investment, infrastructure or tax, but it matters just as much to whether people feel the benefits of growth.
Town centres bring together many of the things that drive local economies, from independent businesses and national retailers to workplaces, financial services, hospitality, culture and community organisations. When they thrive, the benefits reach well beyond the high street – supporting jobs, attracting investment and giving people confidence in their town’s future. But their role is changing. People shop differently than they did a generation ago, and the challenge now is to create places where people have reasons to spend both their time and their money.
High streets today are about more than shops. They can provide access to services, support and community facilities that help people navigate everyday life. Nationwide’s branches are one example of how physical spaces can play that wider role, welcoming 78,000 customers each day and offering services that extend beyond banking, including dementia clinics. Through our partnership, Visa and Nationwide are building on that community role by aiming to install defibrillators and bleed kits at every Nationwide branch, helping make high streets safer and more supportive places for everyone.
Visiting towns across Britain has reinforced a simple point: places succeed when they build on their strengths, back people who want to create something, and bring together organisations that would struggle to deliver change alone.
Successful regeneration rarely begins with a grand plan or an attempt to copy what has worked elsewhere. More often, it starts with understanding the assets, businesses and communities already there. In Boscombe, Bournemouth, we saw the development of a Digital Skills Hub, which aims to bring employment support, training and community services onto the high street. ‘We Are Boscombe’ has created an independent brand celebrating the town and its traders. Neither applies a generic, top-down model of what a high street ought to be. Both respond to the needs and identity of the place; the kind of local knowledge that national policy cannot easily replicate.
Places also thrive when they make it easier for people to have a go. Britain is full of people with ideas for businesses, events and community projects. Often, the cost of fitting out premises and committing to a long lease stops them before they start. Lowering those barriers can unlock far more than the initial investment.
In Kent, Ramsgate Space, a community interest company supported by Let’s Celebrate Towns, is tackling empty shopfronts by working with landlords to match new businesses with vacant units. It has already helped more than 50 enterprises secure premises in the town centre. Its incubator kitchen lets food entrepreneurs trade without the expense of their own fit-out, giving them a lower-risk route from pop-ups to permanent sites once their business is proven. Filling one unit or backing one entrepreneur may seem modest next to the national debate about growth, but successful local economies may be built from thousands of decisions like these.
Again and again, we have seen that local growth is rarely delivered by one organisation acting alone. Businesses, councils, community groups, volunteers and residents each bring something different, whether investment, local knowledge, premises, networks or the ability to bring people together. It is the combination that makes change stick long term.
This matters as the government develops its High Streets Strategy and devolves greater responsibility for local growth. National government has an important role, but much of the knowledge, ambition and energy needed already exists within Britain’s towns. The opportunity is to give local leaders the freedom to shape solutions around their communities, with government and business providing the investment and support that help successful ideas grow and spread.
For Visa and Nationwide, Let’s Celebrate Towns has been a way to support ideas that work, and offer backing to help keep towns moving. From the businesses and transactions that keep high streets busy to the homes, financial services and long-term investment that underpin thriving communities, we see every day how closely the health of local economies is tied to Britain’s wider prosperity.
There will never be a single formula for a successful town, and four years of Let’s Celebrate Towns has shown why that is a strength. Britain’s economic comeback will be recorded in national statistics, but felt in towns and communities across the country. If we want people to feel the benefits of growth, our high streets are the place to start.
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