Twitter

Future City Game

CLES Newsletter

Understanding and supporting the resilience of market towns

Britain is currently in the grips of a recession, with increases in unemployment levels, business insolvency rates and repossessions. The current economic downturn is having an impact on all localities within Britain, ranging from large cities to small rural villages. Problems which have been historically associated with our small towns such as commuting patterns, retail offerings, footfall counts and housing prices have been sharpened during the current economic climate. The increased uncertainty about the direction in which the economy and the vulnerability of many rural settlements, re-opens the debate on how the current policy environment provides for the needs of rural economies and their communities. It is with these issues in mind that this research has been undertaken to explore the resilience of market towns in England.

The research has been undertaken by Action for Market Towns (AMT) and Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) and has been supported through funding by the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC). The main aims of the research were as follows:

• to understand the economic resilience of market towns considering how the public social and commercial economies operate and interact with each other;

• to uncover evidence of impacts of recession on market towns in order to better understand their vulnerability to national and global economic pressure.

This work is the first part of a larger research project into the resilience of market towns to be undertaken over the next year by CLES and AMT.

Understanding and supporting the resilience of market towns

CLES Commendations 2010

Local Economic Assessment Network

Wellbeing Evaluation

Norwich LEGI

HCA Placemaking Practice Review Panel