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Re-Setting our Town Centres

183:826456379 (Karen Whelan) — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 09:44:50 GMT

Re-Setting our Town Centres

Sharing with you a recent video I created on resetting the parameters for villages, towns and cities.

Karen Whelan is the former chief executive of Surrey Heath BC and a director at Henry Finall Consulting

Building Back Better and Stronger

183:826456379 (Karen Whelan) — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 15:26:33 GMT

Building Back Better & Stronger

https://www.themj.co.uk/Building-Back-Better-and-Stronger/219125

In a world currently unrecognisable in terms of changed living habits, never has it been more relevant to adopt an opportunity mindset than now. As with many challenges, there are always green ‘lightbulbs’ lurking and whilst we move into a second lockdown phase, let’s use our collective minds to bring about a landmark turning point for future sustainability and resilience.

Some of the best innovations have adapted as a force for good. The NHS, a creation of the Atlee government in 1944 and a concept still admired throughout the world as a healthcare service for all, is still heroically surviving, despite years of underfunding, creating a resilient response to the current crisis.

At these challenging times there is a call for the creative, innovative and brave to come forward, to unite across all civic, political, commercial and community boundaries and use the power of data analytics, good design and collaborative and creative thinking to shape better services, better places to live and to re-draw future habitats which are greener, smarter, circular and resilient.

During the pandemic, communities have already driven change. We have seen a resurgence of growth in smaller local economies as secondary shopping centres and villages are favoured destinations over larger towns and cities. Large conurbations have seen a considerable drop in footfall as working patterns change and travel restrictions affect our cities tourism but cities are crucial to our longer term economic recovery and world-wide influence and are striving to lead that recovery from the bottom up.

The real gatekeepers of Place, its future success and the services people will demand are surely those who know their areas best and have a vested desire to succeed. Prior to the pandemic, the world united in the climate change agenda after one young voice sought change for future generations. Of late we are seeing these same green shoots of local action where community leaders and metro mayors are taking control, re-working their future place ambitions and lobbying Government hard to re-think their positions.

Local communities, businesses and learning institutions, working with their public authorities as well as Government, can unite to re-shape their local vision for towns and cities but it needs to be locally driven with a mindset to succeed and include our youth in our place shaping dialogue. Government needs to set longer term funding solutions too with regulatory parameters that are flexible enough to allow sustainable design, innovation and continued safe growth. Now more than ever, local politicians need to look to the future and unite behind their communities’ needs, move forward with revised growth proposals, where they can, and put to one side political differences to lead on the inclusive society model for recovery.

If we can understand the balance needed between keeping communities safe but enabling continual enjoyment of places by all, which in turn promotes local, green growth and improved, inclusive wellbeing, we can adapt local places for all to thrive in new look environments that stimulate innovation, promote multi-sectoral responses and aid quicker, consensus led economic recovery. Planning for the type of district centre that our communities will demand in future not only needs their input but their trust that we will deliver.

In cities and larger towns this will be more challenging due to scale and reliance on the working economy and tourism to drive economic recovery and growth. This is unlikely to return to sustainable levels quickly. Nevertheless, the key indicators that have challenged our cities’ growth before the pandemic are still there. Re-building our cities’ futures is a key component to regional and national recovery. Tackling wealth inequalities, air quality and congestion and redesigning places with smart city concepts, needs to be driven harder than ever to create the economic growth which will move us forward again. Addressing these issues with construction and innovation led solutions has to be the catalyst for opportunity - and with all Place making challenges solutions are possible when we unite in succeeding for the communities we serve. It will also take bold and courageous decision making which may be politically costly but likely to be more socially acceptable than a few months ago.

Nobody is saying any of what we are facing at present is easy and nobody is saying we have the answers but the civic response has always had great determination to adapt and succeed whatever the challenge. Our success with effective collaborations across a wide spectrum of pioneering innovators will determine how well we move out of the current crisis to a more sustained recovery position with inclusive, innovative and creative re-design of services and places.

Karen Whelan is the former chief executive of Surrey Heath BC and a director at Henry Finall Consulting

Tackling Climate Change, Mission Impossible or a New Hope

183:826456379 (Karen Whelan) — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 08:12:01 GMT

Mission Impossible or a new hope?

https://www.themj.co.uk/Tackling-climate-change-Mission-Impossible-or-a-new-hope/218124

The Government has charged local authorities with the mission of delivering carbon neutrality by 2050. Councils recognise this as our next emergency which, unlike COVID-19, we are well aware is coming. Our youth declared the importance of this mission with the largest world protest on climate change last year. Over 300 local authorities signed up to the Climate Change Charter, to achieve carbon neutrality within their own services by or before 2030. Time was tight enough, without a global pandemic.

In a recent webinar by Future of London, the scale of this problem was well articulated even before the pandemic. London authorities seemed well positioned to deliver real change but felt the government targets for 2025 and beyond were already in jeopardy. In core cities like Birmingham and Nottingham, authorities were urgently seeking support from government to use climate change initiatives as a way of creating city growth and tackling the huge wealth gap between London and the rest of the country.

Generally, public sector emissions are already small (between 3-5%), compared with the wider commercial and industrial contributions. Nevertheless, reducing these to neutrality will require billions. Whilst COVID-19 is forcing us into new ways of working and business models will need to be recast, local authorities can seize this opportunity to also push for environmental sustainability. When adopting smart city concepts in our major towns and cities we will need greater solutions than just the 'experience factor'. These spaces need to become holistic, self-sustaining living environments, unique to their local area and embracing their local businesses.

Our youth, who are not our usual age demographic when it comes to consultee responses, can lead the way with this ambition. At this time they have shown that the power of their voice and magnitude of their activism can spark real change. In the same way the UK led the industrial revolution, we can now be at the forefront of the green revolution; our new 'USP' in the global economy being the commitment we will make to our future generations.

Over many weeks of lockdown, nations have experienced a huge reduction in our collective carbon footprint but with an inevitable devastating impact on our economy. The world has recast its way of life; the pandemic has led to us questioning the need for journeys, the approach to meetings and whether all staff need an office environment every day. It has increased our ability to walk, cycle and use the outdoors sensibly, find alternative ways to socialise, and to digitally connect with people.

It has tested the true nature of localism with community groups delivering effective local services and we have embraced a far more collaborative way of working across sector boundaries, with services being delivered more efficiently than before in some cases. Donna Nolan, Managing Director at Watford Borough Council, recently stated that the team dynamic for their local authority is Survive, Revive and Thrive, praising the work of councils during the pandemic through the trust given to staff at all levels to deliver the right response. To ‘Revive and Thrive’, local authorities need to embrace the good practices which have come from their own experiences of lockdown, rather than return to a pre-pandemic norm. Trust has been at the forefront of this shift and trust needs to spearhead the culture change needed for future delivery options from central to local delivery.

With a nation needing to rebuild a broken economy and a world demanding sustainability, what better impetus than to build a recovery through new local jobs, new technologies, sustainable working methods and more time for leisure and enjoying our lives. With the recent call to Government by more than 200 firms in the UK who have pledged their commitment to a greener recovery plan for the UK, local authorities should now seize the opportunity to revive their practices and build a new sustainable local economy through retrofits, new smart city concepts, renewable energy sources, local plans supporting green infrastructure, less or greener vehicle movements and more air and exercise to improve our health.

These initiatives which make immediate changes to our general wellbeing is surely worth making the switch, providing time for leisure with a leisure industry desperate to fill the current void. Why not embrace the work needed to deliver sustainable change towards carbon neutrality and use the climate change agenda to rebuild a sustainable nation for generations to come. Whilst the enormity of the task cannot be underestimated, to meet these very demanding targets, radical change in key areas of business delivery is required and our current pandemic crisis can be the catalyst to recast that delivery with climate friendly solutions at the forefront of our thinking.

Karen Whelan is the former chief executive of Surrey Heath BC