POLITICS shape tomorrow’s city’
CENTRE FOR CITIES POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR LEICESTER
Valentine Quinio
recovers from the impacts of Covid, a city like Leicester has massive potential to grow and excel. “However, we need to think radically about
how we reshape the city centre because yesterday’s thinking won’t shape the place of tomorrow. “In order to do this, it’s essential that the
business community plays a leading role in sharing ideas and shaping policy to support the creation of a city centre that is open, diverse, welcoming and a place where workers, families, students and others want to spend their time and money.” There’s signs Leicester is moving in the right
direction, believes BID Leicester director Simon Jenner, who points to examples of major firms like Mattioli Woods, IBM and PPL PRS relocating to the city in recent years. The business improvement district group,
which was set up in 2018 and represents 714 organisations, has also signed up 100 businesses to the Independent Leicester campaign, rolled out the LoyalFree digital loyalty scheme to 9,000 members and sold £40,000 worth of Leicester Gift Cards since its launch in September last year. Simon adds: “Broadly speaking, in the 20th
century, we hollowed out our towns and cities, and gave them over to retail, but now what we’re seeing is an effort to create more of a blend that still includes retail but with more choice. “There’s a lot of work going on to strengthen
the offer around culture, leisure and food so people can have outstanding experiences, and we’ve seen some really positive signs of this heading in the right direction.” Other discussion points include the need to create flexible and collaborative working spaces
Robin Pointon
for start-ups and young workers, creating reasons for people living outside the city to visit, and how to ensure any wealth created in the city centre is distributed across wards where deprivation is rife. These ideas, along with the recommendations
made by the Centre for Cities, will be compiled and presented by the Chamber, Leicestershire Business Voice (LBV) and BID Leicester to Leicester City Council and the Leicester and Leicestershire Local Enterprise Partnership for further exploration on how they can be turned into action. LBV chair Robin Pointon, who is also managing director of sustainable transport consultancy Go Travel Solutions, says the issue of Leicester’s economic recovery is central to all its businesses and stakeholders. “In this ambition, both the public and private sector have key parts to play,” he adds.
IT’S IMPORTANT TO note here that Leicester isn’t bottom of the pile when it comes to the various statistics that rank cities and large towns according to their overall economic strength. Instead, it ranks firmly in the middle of the
pack – ahead of Luton, Stoke, Swansea and Derby, but behind Liverpool, Nottingham, Cardiff and Sheffield. Valentine adds: "Like all city centres in the UK,
Leicester has been heavily impacted by the pandemic. “As we’re hoping to enter the recovery phase
in the next few months, the question now is – to what situation is Leicester centre bouncing back, and how has this been affected by Covid? “The data shows there are a number of strengths
and opportunities Leicester centre can build on, but also long-term challenges to address.”
Short-term priorities
• Rebuild trust in public transport to give confidence for people to return to high street
• Revisit schemes like Eat Out to Help Out and time-limited local vouchers for high street to support local businesses
• Adapt new office space towards more flexible, multi-purpose uses
• Ease planning rules to allow for more flexible uses of the high street, such as allowing hospitality businesses to operate on pavements
Medium and long-term priorities
• Invest in skills of the workforce
• Move away from over-reliance on retail by adapting shopping space for education, leisure, residential, arts and culture
• Build or repurpose high-quality office space
• Invest in city centre’s “liveability” by reallocating public space for walking and cycling, while moving towards greener and less car-heavy city centre
• Invest in public transport to improve accessibility and flexibility
business network March 2021 53
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