Research: Vital and viable neighbourhoods

Research summary

• 2016 - ongoing

The project sought to improve the vitality and viability of district centres across Manchester.

Policymaking and academic research has tended to focus on revitalising larger town and city centres. But high streets in small communities remain important to many people, as has been shown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Footfall counters, provided by retail analytics specialists Springboard, were installed in 10 of Manchester’s district centres, for the first time giving data to track activity and performance across the whole city.

Researchers worked closely with stakeholders in five district centres - Chorlton, Gorton, Harpurhey, Northenden, and Withington - to develop strategies and find opportunities to make ‘quick win’ recommendations, as well as longer-term improvements.

The researchers also linked up with neighbourhood teams in each location to find out more about current issues and developments, and ran workshops with local place-based stakeholders in each centre, to agree strengths and opportunities to improve each centre.

Place quality audits were also carried out in each centre, using the Institute of Place Management’s (IPM) framework of 25 priorities for vitality and viability.

Researchers also prepared reports for each centre drawing together the evidence and making recommendations, which drew on the IPM’s 4Rs of regeneration framework.

The reports called for strengthened capacity to effect change, alignment of placemaking interventions around the IPM’s 25 priorities, and monitoring and sharing of data to help inform decisions. The district centres have acted on the recommendations, which have also helped shape Manchester’s Local Plan.

The project has since been extended to investigate district centre vitality and viability in:

• Stockport (2019-present)
• Salford (2020-present)