AGORA (Town Centre/District Management)
Working to protect and revitalise town centres and retail districts through community involvement in town centre management.
From Bustling Agoras to Towns and Cities in Decline
In ancient Greece, the agora, or marketplace, was the lively focal point for the town/city's commercial, political and social activities. Historically, British towns and cities have followed the same model, with market places and high-streets offering commercial space, taverns and parks offering social space and town halls offering opportunities for political debate. In spite of this, many of today’s town centres bear more resemblance to 'ghostowns' (New Economics Foundation, 2003) than bustling agoras. Nearly 60 per cent of towns and cities in Britain are in decline (Experian, 2002) in spite of their importance to many disadvantaged groups and to many of the UK's 300,000 small shops (source: DTI).
AGORA – Revitalising Town Centres and Retail Districts
AGORA is a £2.7 million project, part-funded by the European Social Fund’s Equal programme. This GB-wide public-private partnership, led by the Manchester Metropolitan University and the Association of Town Centre Management, will empower local communities in predominantly deprived areas to manage their town and/or district centres following sustainable social enterprise management models, thereby reversing economic decline and ensuring the district centre is run for the benefit of all its local stakeholders. This community-led approach will ensure that local people have a vital input into the regeneration of local retail districts by building on the experience of existing town centre management schemes while creating innovative models adapted from the social economy sector.
Key Objectives
- To create an AGORA observatory that measures and evaluates the role of social entrepreneurship-based models of town centre management in terms of their impact on various stakeholders such as local residents, disadvantaged groups and small/medium-sized enterprises.
- To facilitate the development of alternative models of town centre or district management for 8 AGORA communities whose profits are reinvested into the improvement of the area’s quality of life and the creation/facilitation of enterprises considered vital to the sustainability of those communities such as local food supply chains and community services.
- To create a sustainable ‘Town Centre Management Academy’ so that local stakeholders (including existing town centre managers) can gain the skills and knowledge necessary to make improvements to their districts both now and in the future. This will include the development of a knowledge transfer service so that relevant information can be accessed by AGORA communities through local access points (e.g. libraries).
- To network people and places across Europe who have a passion to improve their localities through the principles of social entrepreneurship.
AGORA Partnership
AGORA will be supported by REN whose partners have a strategic interest in the development of sustainable town centre management schemes based on the principles of social entrepreneurship. AGORA is also supported by the Association of Town Centre Management – the internationally recognised support structure to over 300 existing town and city centre partnerships.
In addition to delivery partners, the REN partnership also has the backing of groups representing those we wish to support who can guide the development of activities and test their ‘fitness for purpose’, accessibility and impact.
The AGORA project wishes to attract more partners to an initiative that already includes: