Fighting for Chippenham and its (non-beige) Future
So, what do you do if your town centre has been passive for years, is beige, and has no body that is actively fighting for its future?
Sandie Webb MIPM writes about how the power of local partnership has helped to transform Chippenham's future.
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That is the question which faced Chippenham straight after the pandemic in 2021, with the BID failing to get a second term as the pandemic hit, no active Chamber of Commerce, and both the Town and Principal councils busy with other aspects of work. Those were difficult circumstances that were turned into a positive when members of the community got together and truly found: ‘There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about’ - and care they certainly did.
The Town Team movement
The Town Team movement was formed and soon gathered momentum, with the membership creating four distinct and active town Quarters that each concentrate on specific issues and opportunities which directly affect their areas. Populated with its own leadership, this information is then passed on to the Community Town Team (every six weeks) where the input is discussed and fed into the work of the Chippenham Partnership Board; a multi disciplined membership body that is chaired by the local MP, Michelle Donnellan.
The four quarters have been included in the emerging Wiltshire Local Plan 2025-2036 and are an integral part of the Chippenham regeneration programme, a process that has grown, and one which includes key investors, statutory authorities, independent traders, and members of the community.
A ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ has been ‘signed and sealed’, between the Town Team, Town Council, and Wiltshire Council after passing through all the committee stages, and this has now moved on to the ‘delivery stage’ - which is the more challenging aspect of the whole process and one that will require good partnership working and vision to progress.
Blank canvas of a beautiful market town
After all this work no-one is happy to hear the description of the town centre as still being beige, but using this narrative within the context that it is (almost) a blank canvas - albeit stable, safe, and reliable - means nevertheless that it is a perfect backdrop with more work and vision required.
This is a positive to this story, because 2024 sees huge private investment going into the town, both in the centre and on the periphery, with housing and notable industry players in the process of developing plans that will alter the shape of Chippenham over the coming years.
It is this ‘silver lining’ that we now look to for the next phase of development in the community Town Team movement.
Those investing in our town are not doing so because they are a part of the ‘community discovering what it cares about’, they are doing so for profit – which is a perfectly good reason for coming into our lovely town, but with that gain comes a degree of corporate social responsibility, both to contribute to the sustainability of the way that their presence and plans will affect the town centre of today and as partners of the future.
Town Centre Management
The firm working base and progress that has been established by the Chippenham town centre regeneration movement was delivered on a totally voluntary basis, which while admirable, is in no way sustainable, and so at the last Chippenham Partnership Board meeting the Town Team tabled a proposition to employ a dedicated full-time manager for the town centre to oversee all the changes and challenges that are being faced and ensure a dedicated focus.
The proposition was received well, but we now await the next stage.
This post would work within the successful structures that have already been laid down over the past three years and could possibly be funded by either top-up contributions from the developers and grants, or CIL money; a discussion for the statutory authorities and principal players to have with significant others.
The alternative of course, would be to dedicate money from the extensive business rates levy. But then that is another whole topic of town centre regeneration to discuss!
Successful place making is multidimensional, and even after all the progress made so far, we have only scratched the surface. The movement has found progress slow as there were times that it was working in vacuum, laying down new tracks against a tide of lethargy, conventional wisdom, and approaches that no longer have a place in this new era.
As one of only three principal towns in Wiltshire, and by far the largest with development capacity still unfulfilled, there was and still is a real need in Chippenham for something to replace the space that the BID and Chamber of Commerce used to fill.
The Town Team movement has stepped into that void and certainly made progress but has done so without any funding while watching government money for town centres sometime missing the areas of regeneration that three years of work has seen the movement tackling.
Chippenham is a little less beige today, but with funded place management and continued partnership working the town could soon see this ‘non-description’ relegated to the past with the future truly reflecting the beautiful canvas we have to work on in the market town of Chippenham, Wiltshire.
About the author
Formed in 2006, the Institute of Place Management is the international professional body that supports people committed to developing, managing and making places better.