VIDEO | Leveraging investment to drive growth in Bury
Like many local authorities across the country, Bury Council is on a mission to breathe new life into its town centres. Chief executive Lynne Ridsdale spoke to Place North West about how her organisation is funding that vision.
The pandemic brought about a change in working practices that sucked workers out of town centres up and down the country, while the rise in online shopping was having an impact on bricks and mortar retail long before that.
These twin factors, among others, have brought town centres to their knees and forced councils into action to revive them.
To do so requires funding. But with local government coffers bare, how are councils going about paying for change?
“It is not realistic anymore to look to the public sector anymore to be the principal funder,” Ridsdale said.
“The scale of investment we need to achieve really ambitious change is significant so we think the solution is in partnerships, much more creative partnerships between the public and private sectors.”
Indeed, Ridsdale recognises that public funding can only stretch so far and must be made to work hard.
“What we are really trying to do is bring together public sector funding as a lever to secure much higher value, longer-term private sector funding to take us further.”
Leveraging private sector investment is the only way councils like Bury will be able to deliver on its regeneration pipeline. But all the capital in the world will count for nothing if the projects to do not deliver their desired outcomes.
“We are really clear in Bury that this is [about] more than money,” Ridsdale said.
“This has to be about civic and commercial leadership having a shared vision for a place.”
Bury and the wider Greater Manchester city region have made a success of this in recent years, seeing GDP rise faster than the national average.
“We would say that is because of that ‘total place’ model and the collective commitment cross sector to the regeneration and growth of place,” Ridsdale said.
You can watch the whole video by clicking the link at the top of this article or visiting our YouTube channel.
One can only hope the “shared vision” of the “civic and commercial leadership” aligns with the needs of the local population, and not just a mutual interest to build flats and collect council tax by public / private entities.
I must concede that most Prestwich residents do seem aligned that 200 more flats and removal of the car parks is a good idea, though as a resident I am a lone contrarian on that.
However, I look at Whitefield, a town in the shadow of a massive gymnasium, where a town hall and library were left to rot for 30 years. The emphasis of the recent consultation was about shutting down the arterial road, because apparently the residents are missing some unknown kind of amenity, which the council have decided must occur where the road is. The residents complained that this would not be helpful, to which the council’s response is that they intend to do it anyway, and will arrange studies intended to support their position. Well, I watch with interest how this lofty vision plays out.
By Anonymous