Stronger North East – Dynamic

Author - Helen Cartwright

Date published:

Creating a Dynamic North East is crucial to this region growing its economy and exploiting opportunities for growth.

Rachel Anderson, Chamber assistant director leads on this theme, here she explains the main projects underway at present, primarily around the importance of place to businesses and individuals.

“Following on from our report with Lichfields three years ago, we set up a pilot scheme working with Newcastle Building Society (NBS) looking at how we could bring support to independent retailers. Covid hitting the retail sector so hard meant we had to pause this work but we did learn a significant amount from the initial project and are now passing those findings to Local Authorities and LEPs to shape future support.

We have a Town Centre working group chaired by Stuart Millar of NBS who also sits on the National High Streets Task force. Two key strands of work have come out of that so far –

White Paper in the Autumn

Following on from the Prime Minister’s speech on Levelling Up, the Government has now published “Build Back Better High Streets” which is a vision document for recovery after the pandemic. We now expect a White Paper on Town Centres in the Autumn and will be making detailed response to its content working with our partners.

Engagement with Local Authorities

We do recognise that Local Authorities are the drivers of town centre regeneration across the region and will be looking to engage more closely with them on Town Centre issues and map best practice taking place. We are also heavily engaged with a number of Town Deals across the Region.

In the longer term (2022), we would like to look again at our high streets in the North East and see what has changed (and what hasn’t) following the pandemic, the recovery from the pandemic. The result will be a paper which details the changes and makes recommendations to regional and national policy makers. This will be a significant piece of work and we will be looking to work with Members on the paper.

Case Study – Newcastle Building Society

Stuart Miller is chief customer officer at Newcastle Building Society and board member of the High Streets Task Force. 

It’s fair to say that even before the pandemic, our high streets were under severe pressure and facing a serious challenge to compete in the 21st century. And whilst online and home delivery services have boomed over the past 18 months, the pandemic has significantly magnified the issues facing our high streets, with restrictions requiring many businesses to close for long periods and forcing others to stop trading altogether.  

But if you look a little closer there are several reasons to believe that the future of our high streets is bright. Recent research by Newcastle Building Society found that public loyalty towards the high street is incredibly strong – 93% of adults said they value their high street and 1 in 10 said they’d be ‘lost’ without its vital services.  

So if people want their local high street to thrive, are they prepared to do anything about it? Well that’s where the research got really interesting, because more than 70% of people said they would ‘commit’ to spending less money online in a bid to save their local high street. It’s a clear sign – and a hugely encouraging one – that suggests people are willing to change their habits if it means helping their high streets. Could this be a positive change we’ll experience in the ‘post-Covid’ world?  

Because Newcastle Building Society shares that same belief in the value of our high streets, we’re continuing with our multi-million pound branch investment programme. Just weeks before the coronavirus outbreak in February 2020, we were bucking the trend of high street financial institutions by opening new branches in rural towns in Northumberland and North Yorkshire. 

Now, after a Covid-enforced pause, we’ve resumed our drive to grow access to face to face financial services across the North East, North Yorkshire and Cumbria. Plans include the relocation of our West Denton branch to a bigger and more prominent space, as well as the refurbishment of our branch in Bishop Auckland, which we took on from another bank when they left the town. Another brand new branch is being planned within a redeveloped council-run library in Tynemouth, where we expect to replicate the success of our branch within Yarm library which opened in 2016. 

The continued health of our high streets really requires a change in habit. People often ask me what they can do to help and the answer is simple – go visit your high street or town centre, speak to your local retailers and spend your money with those businesses who support their families with your custom.  

For an individual, a change of habit might mean spending less online but for a business like Newcastle Building Society it means committing long term and investing heavily in our high street branches. It also means offering free to use community meeting spaces wherever space allows and using local suppliers where possible such as using local companies to fit out our new and refurbished branches or the North Tyneside-based coffee company we use to supply all our branches with coffee. It also includes looking for innovative ways to provide face to face financial services. We believe there is still a strong demand for warm, friendly financial advice on the high street and that’s why we’ll continue to invest in our branch network. 

The best solutions for our high streets will be locally-led and designed to meet the needs of the community. To be truly fit for the future, our high streets need data-led local leadership and to embrace new ideas around collaboration and use of space. Perhaps most of all high streets need the financial and emotional support of the public. I’m confident that backing is already in place and that the future of high streets is brighter than you might think. 

For more information visit www.newcastle.co.uk or for more on the work of the High Streets Task Force, go to www.highstreetstaskforce.org.uk 

Back to hub