Measuring and Managing Success -Chris Wade, CEO, AMT.doc

7/30/2019 Measuring and Managing Success -Chris Wade, CEO, AMT.doc

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Measuring and Managing Successin Town Centre Regeneration

Chris Wade, Chief Executive, Action for Market Towns

Why measure?

What get's measured; gets done!

It's great to instinctively do things because you know they will deliver

results and improve your town. As work progresses to intervene in the

social and economic complexities of our town centres; it's good also to

understand more about your community and what works from one place

to another. Measuring success helps understand and clarify what you are

trying to achieve; boosts moral (hopefully!) by valuing progress indifferent directions; and enables comparisons between different projects

and places.

A simple management tool

From AMT's experience of measuring change in over 100 towns through

our town centre economic 'benchmarking' processi; we find it works well if

the process is simple; affordable; comparable between places and over

time; easy to use and understand by busy people within Government and

at the sharp end!

Measuring town performance should be a practical tool that is useful in

the local management of town centre improvement and helps

cumulatively assess the success of policy delivery at the national level.

Be wary of anyone who says that only either 'bottom-up' or 'top-down'

monitoring is really important!

Recognising different types of towns

To be able to compare progress its helpful to be able to recognise

different types of towns. For example, in a Welsh context Flintshire

Council has identified the different functions of its coastal market towns.

Across England, AMT has worked with the Rural Evidence Research Centre

and used Census data to divide 1500 towns in to eight different types of

town according to population characteristicsii. In 2008 Scottish Enterprise

undertook analysis of the size and economic function of Scottish towns,

cities and their 'hinterlands' to identify different building blocksiii.

As 2011 Census data comes on stream from spring 2013; it would be a

good time to look again at an appropriate 'typology' that will helppractitioners compare and policy makers understand the 'finer grain' that


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distinguishes communities. What is important, is an objective and

consistent approach.

Measuring town centre success in Scotland

The key to developing and using a workable system for measuring and

managing town centre performance in Scotland, seems to be adhering to

the basic principles of simplicity, affordability and consistency in a way

that addresses previously identified priorities identified by theTown Centres and

Local High Streets Learning Networkiv for: anholistic approach to regeneratingand managing town centres; the need to reach a consensus on and develop a relatedsuiteof indicators that can be applied in a consistent fashion to measure performance.

These previous discussions about developing a key performanceframework for towns, categorised potential indicators by the three broad

headings ofplace;people and work. Neatly these categorises align with

the Scottish Government's broad regenerationphysical, socialand economicoutcomes

sought in the 2011 Regeneration Strategy; Achieving a Sustainable Futurev,as summarised

in the table below.

Any approach to develop town centre performance indicators, should

therefore look beyond traditional indicators such as retail vacancy rates

and capture the enriched characteristics sought by government and

practitioners as the drivers for enhancing the quality of Scottish towns.

What next?

The structure represented by this summary table of priorities andpotential indicators for a Scottish town centre revival; seem a great basis

Physical (place) Social (people) Economic (Work)

Well planned,designed &

maintained.

Infrastructurefostersconnectivity,growth &communitycohesion

Availability andquality of housing

across all tenures

Town centres act associal & economic

hub

Access tocommunity facilitiesand local services

Effectivecommunitynetworks andempowerment

Good health andfeel safe

Thriving towncentres

Strong localeconomies,business support,employment&investment

Learning &developmentopportunities


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for further discussions. Add to that the Government's Town Centre

Review is set to report as Census data will come on stream; the time

seems right to develop a practicable approach for comparing towns by

type and measuring and managing their enhancement using an enriched

set of indicators.

Get in touch if you want to join us in working with Scotland's Town Group,

Scottish BIDs, Development Trust Association Scotland, University of

Stirling Institute for Retail Studies and Scottish Government

representatives to shape and deliver this. In the meantime, this is our

recommendation:

To develop an 'enriched' benchmarking system of key indicators thatprovides baseline data that can be monitored annually to track progress

and influence management and decision-making. Importantly thisinformation should be manageable and affordable to collect and beunderstandable to a range of stakeholders from a local to national level.In addition the process should involve recognising different types oftown to enable comparisons between towns.


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i AMT. Market TownBenchmarking: http://towns.org.uk/amt-i/town-benchmarking/

ii RERC-AMT, 2009. Typology for Small Towns: http://towns.org.uk/2009/05/28/new-research-

on-types-of-towns/

iii Scottish Enterprise, 2008. Understanding the Role of Places in City Regions and Rural

Scotland: http://www.scottish-

enterprise.com/~/media/SE/Resources/Documents/STUV/Understanding-the-role-of-places.ashx

iv Scottish Government, 2010. Developing a Key Performance Framework for your Town:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/94257/0120072.pdf

v Scottish Government , 2011 Regeneration Strategy; Achieving a Sustainable Future:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/12/09110320/0

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