Altrincham will be among ten towns that have been selected for a pioneering project to revitalise the high street.
The project, being led by MMU’s business academics, High Street UK 2020, is an attempt to reverse the decline of retail districts.
Researchers joined with councillors, retail managers, traders and other stakeholders to create strategies for each area.
The team, led by Professor Cathy Parker, also used wealth of retail research and previous studies to craft the step-by-step plans.
Actions to be taken differed between the towns but included better car parking, improving pedestrian access, attracting restaurants, changing opening hours, better marketing of events and using redundant space.
It was found that only around a third of the factors that impact upon high street performance can be managed locally.
Prof Parker, Chair of Retail and Marketing Enterprise at MMU, said: “High streets will continue to be affected by forces outside of their control, like the state of the economy, retail innovation and changes in consumer behaviour.
“What’s important is that locations understand what they can influence – and prioritise the actions that will have the most positive impact.”
The 10 UK towns are Alsager, Altrincham, Ballymena, Barnsley, Bristol, Congleton, Holmfirth, Market Rasen, Morley and Wrexham.
Knowledge was exchanged with the partner towns through a series of workshops, held during June and July, culminating in a national conference at MMU’s £75million Business School.
The towns now have unrivalled access to an online support centre, resources normally unobtainable by local town centre partnerships.
The HSUK2020 project reviewed more than 200 studies, identifying 160 different influences on high street vitality and viability. No one study has examined all these at once.
