WITH the Monmouthshire Your High Street, Use it or Lose it campaign in full swing, the Free Press want to see how people feel about their town centres.

Chepstow town mayor and councillor Paul Pavia discusses how he believes our town centres can fully thrive...

"I AM pleased that the Free Press is once again focusing minds on protecting our high streets.

Readers may remember a flurry of activity at both ends of the M4 about 5 years ago, when the UK Government commissioned the retail-guru, Mary Portas, to undertake an independent review of our high streets, which was quickly followed up by a report by the former Department of Business, Innovation and Skills on Understanding High Street Performance.

Less than a year later, the National Assembly’s Enterprise and Business Committee published its review into the regeneration of Welsh town centres and made 21 recommendations to the Welsh Government, which covered amending national planning policy to protect town centres from the impacts of out-of-town retail developments, right through to having a dedicated ministerial lead for town centres who would establish a Town Centre Policy Forum, to help overcome common challenges and share best practice.

The public policy environment is awash with initiatives; some will work and others will not but in many cases, they just need to be tried.

The inescapable reality is that the problems facing our town centres in Wales are universal.

While some businesses are still recovering from the economic down-turn that hit in 2008, the systemic cause of town centre decline is primarily one of changing consumer behaviour – the rise of out-of-town stores and online retail.

Arguably, this is the most difficult challenge to overcome; how do policy-makers influence people’s hearts and minds – their lifestyles, shopping habits and travel choices – so that town centres continue to thrive in the long term?

However, if we want our town centres to be vibrant and at the heart of sustainable communities in Wales, then we have to be sophisticated and innovative in the solutions we employ locally. Also, government needs to set the right macro-economic conditions to stimulate and direct investment in to town centres.

This is clearly not going to be easy. For businesses they have to work flexibly and adapt in part to consumer change but I also think they need to provide the quality product or service that will make shoppers want visit our high street and most importantly, come back. For councils and government, there is another real opportunity to focus political will on protecting our high streets with the implementation of the Well-being of Future Generations Act – the Welsh Government’s flagship law to improve the social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being of Wales. Public bodies, by law, will now have to think more about the long term, how they work better with people, with communities and each other, adopting a more joined-up approach to prevent problems from occurring.

As one of the larger town councils in Wales, Chepstow Town Council will be mandated to report on what we are doing to meet the seven well-being goals, which includes how we are enabling Chepstow to become a more prosperous community. Moreover, Monmouthshire County Council will also have to demonstrate what it is doing to make the county a more prosperous and better place to live and work.

As Mary Portas pointed out, we cannot afford to be nostalgic about our high streets. How we shop as a nation has quite simply “changed beyond recognition. Forever.” Therefore, our town centres must reflect that change; high streets purely as a commercial retail mix will simply not work in the future. It is about delivering an all-encompassing experience so that people will keep coming back.

I know there is the appetite and optimism in Chepstow to build on the solid platform that is in place but that can only be done if we collaborate, communicate and compromise."