Jen Heal
Design advisor at the Design Commission for Wales & Co-chair of its national design review service.
Member of the South East Wales Transport Commission
The Covid-19 crisis is expected to cause five years’ change to our high streets in less than 12 months.
That’s the prediction of many retail experts as the retail and hospitality cores of our urban centres begin a period of unprecedented transformation. Indeed, the lasting impact of the virus may well change the high street forever.
Jen Heal is design advisor at the Design Commission for Wales and co-chair of its national design review service. She is also a member of the South East Wales Transport Commission.
She said:
“Our town centres are vital to environmental, economic, social and cultural well-being in Wales. We have an increasingly urban population but around 40% of our population live in small towns of less than 20,000 people.
“Many towns are struggling in the wake of declining retail sales and lockdown restrictions. Consumer behaviour has been forced to change by the pandemic so the high street of the future needs to evolve to become a place where people live, work and spend leisure time, as well as shop.
“It is essential for retailers to become more agile but also for planners and developers to understand the unique features of a town and work with the local community to facilitate improvement and rehabilitation. Establishing town centres as places for community activity and new business development where enterprises can grow from the bottom up will help to capture some of the benefits of re-localising that we have seen as people work from home and travel less.”
The £90 million Transforming Towns package announced by Welsh Government in January 2020 includes measures to increase footfall by making sure the public sector locate services in town centre locations, tackle empty buildings and land to help bring them back into use, and promote greening in town centres. As part of this approach, all Welsh Government departments are putting the health and vibrancy of town centres as the starting point for their location decision-making processes.
Jen Heal is optimistic that the focus on town centres will have a positive long-term impact. She added:
“Welsh towns are as vibrant and diverse as the people and the businesses that occupy them. The pandemic has accelerated the decline of retail but we’ve been talking about how to diversify our high streets for some time. We’ve got to take a more strategic approach to incorporating leisure and family uses.
“High streets can’t compete on convenience for retail. Online shopping has become increasingly fast and reliable so a visit to our local high street has to be more about the quality of the experience. From the ease of travel to the design of the public realm and the choice of activities available, our urban centres have got to offer the complete package. Covid-19 has also made us all realise just how important it is to meet people and dwell in a place together. Retailers will need to adapt to this and develop their customer experience because we all want and need so much more than a simple transaction.
“Indeed, I suspect that towns may more easily adapt to a sustainable future than our larger city centres who rely largely on daytime workers and visitors. Our towns are more localised and often provide a stronger sense of community, and, with more people working from home, this can create more opportunities for local and independent retail and hospitality businesses plus our tourism industry.
“In the meantime, we need temporary interventions and the opportunity to test and try new ideas to keep our town centres alive rather than lose a sense of a place and activity through permanent change of use. This is what will provide greater long-term opportunity for sustainable transformation that engages local people, encourages independents and meets the needs of future generations.”
