Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer
  • 5 days ago
Insider's lunch event looked at how we can revive our high streets with the help of eight speakers from the private and public sectors.

The main solutions suggested by our speakers included reducing the number of shops, creating more experiences, providing more attractive environments, introducing new services such as health centres, and giving cars easier access. The event also heard that more needs to be done to tackle anti-social behaviour. 

Category

🗞
News
Transcript
00:00Hello, my name is Ian Griffin, Deputy Editor of Midlands Business Insider, and I've just hosted
00:14a fantastic lunch event looking at revitalising the high street. We looked at a range of issues
00:22and themes. We looked at how to attract the right funding, how to attract the right mix
00:28on the high street, how to attract the right people. We also looked at tackling antisocial
00:33behaviour and how you dealt with the car. Now let's hear what some of the speakers had to say.
00:41Councillor Adrian Andrew, I'm Deputy Leader of Walsall Council. I've been delighted to be a speaker
00:45today at the Insider event here in Walsall, talking about how we revitalise our high streets,
00:52not just in Walsall but across the region. We're really trying hard in Walsall Town Centre and
00:57across the borough to bring new things into our town centres in order to provide that footfall
01:03and those opportunities and the business opportunities for local people. So in Walsall retail will shrink,
01:10it has shrunk over the years but what we want to do is to bring new leisure, new education and new
01:17opportunities into Walsall and make sure that our town centre is accessible to everyone who wants to
01:24use it to to have a good time. Hi, so I am Serb Corr from Together, a crop of sales looking after the
01:32West Midlands. Had a fabulous day today working with the Insider on a panel interview on reviving the
01:42high street. Really, really important discussion and I'm really happy to be part of it. In terms of
01:48together, we offer speed, flexibility and getting the job done for retailers, for the high street and I think that's
02:00absolutely key now where they're at this pinnacle stage where they're repurposing vacant sites, a property
02:10that needs to be re-established, utilised and, you know, we're here for it. This is exactly the type of thing that we want to be helping with, you know, especially for community benefit.
02:24Hi, I'm Jeff Moody, Chief Commercial Officer of BIRA, British Independent Retailers Association. We look after all different types of
02:33retailers on the high street. I was invited today to talk about not just saving, but the rebirth and the importance of the high street.
02:42I enjoyed the presentation and my discussion, but I really learned a lot of new things about not just what retail was on the high street,
02:51but what the high street really meant in a more generic and a mixed usage. It's really interesting to see that what came over was much about safety and
03:00cleanliness to attract people back. So it's not just the individual retail or leisure or hospitality offering, but people want to feel safe on the high streets.
03:09People want to feel that they're in a comfortable and good surroundings and it was really interesting to hear property developers and
03:16counsellors and retailers like myself talking about how really it's important to get that community feel.
03:24And we've all got plans of what we want the high street to be. But when you actually listen to consumers, it's very clear
03:31they want variety, they want safety and they want cleanliness. And I think if we deliver on those three things,
03:37then we can start to get clever about property development and individual offerings. But I learned a lot today, so I was really pleased with what I picked up.
03:46Thank you!
03:49Thank you for joining the audio and so on
03:52far, we might have a great evening.
03:54Now that's for the best.
03:55It happens!
03:56In a great way, we'll enjoy it.
03:58I plan to focus on this video.
03:59I plan to focus on that you, a lot of people are going to be in the next video,
04:02but I will say thank you.
04:04I plan to focus on it.
04:06I plan to focus on it.
04:08I plan to focus on
04:10to focus on it and start to focus on it and start to focus.

Recommended