I am disappointed, but, I’m afraid, unsurprised that we are not selected as one of the 27 towns to be supported in the Portas Project. I did not think that the application made on behalf of the town by the N&SDC was at all strong.

However, now that we are not part of the High Street Project  I see that MPs from the ‘Town Teams’, including Southwell, not chosen have been asked by the DCLG to come forward and sign a national pledge to become a Town Team Partner. In doing so this would enable access to a package of support to Southwell. The package of support is worth £5.5million nationwide. I really hope that our MP will support Southwell and sign up.

Southwell’s Saturday Market is run by the District Coucil and makes a loss. We must ensure that our market place and main streets are attractive and lively places to shop, meet our freinds and neighbours and are great business locations.

We will approach our MP to ensure that he does sign up, as it seems that Southwell cannot do this for ourselves. Those that sign up to become Town Team Partners will receive backing from a support programme to help put elements of their plans into action plus be able to

• Get access to events, workshops and seminars across the country addressing key challenges facing struggling town centres;
• Receive direct mentoring support and visits from experts with a range of relevant backgrounds;
• Directly benefit from the experience of the 27 Portas Pilots;
• Meet regularly with town teams across the country to share their experiences and lessons learned; and
• Join an online community to receive tips and advice from retail experts

In view of the Town’s Action Plan, we must request this help. We will need to identify how we keep ourselves informed.

Southwell also needs to learn from this experience of how N&SDC support the town. Frankly, their bid on our behalf was cobbled together, incomplete and lacked a storng dynamic. We do need to think about how we respond to these sorts of initiative in future!