Town centre vitality

Vibrant Town Centres

Market towns across the UK have suffered in the last few decades from: growth in out of town retail developments, internet shopping and increased car ownership which allows people to travel further for shopping and leisure facilities. In addition to these longer-term trends, market towns have also suffered during the last few years because consumer spending has declined as unemployment has risen .

To minimise the effects of the downturn, the council implemented a Market Towns Strategy and Action Plan in 2009/10 focussed on delivering projects in market towns. Working in partnership with both Faringdon and Wantage town partnerships, the council secured funding from SEEDA's Small Rural Towns Programme to help deliver a series of targeted actions to improve vitality in the Vale's town centres. The council's Economic Development team are currently delivering the 2011/12 Action plans in partnership with the Town Councils and the Chambers of Commerce in each town. This innovative approach to partnership working is paying dividends as the town centre indicators suggest that our towns are vibrant and economic prosperity is improving.

The council's Economic Development team are also responsible for monitoring the health and vitality of town centres and undertake a retail vacancy survey, footfall survey and maintain a vacant commercial property database. The results of the latest vacancy survey can be downloaded from the right hand side.

If you have ideas that you would like to share with us, please contact the Economic Development team.

How to attract the media, visitors and funding

This event was held on 9 November 2011 at Millets Farm Centre near Abingdon. The presentations from this event are available to download from the links below.

(6.3 MB)