Town Centre Management and Regeneration: The Experience in Four English Cities

Abstract

There is a growing recognition of Town Centre Management (TCM) as one of the several mechanisms to regenerate town centres in the UK context. However, in practice the role of TCM is diverse, ranging from day-to-day maintenance of urban centres to strategic contributions to economic regeneration and developing future vision of the town as a whole. TCM's contribution and capacity to regenerate town centres depends both on the nature of the TCM strategy applied on local regeneration problems and challenges and on local socio-economic circumstances. Drawing on research completed in 2005, this paper presents evidence from four contrasting town centres of the distinctive roles played by TCM in town centre regeneration. The paper demonstrates that under certain conditions TCM has the potential to go beyond its typical focus on town centre enhancement and leverage, to a focus much close to the wider social objectives of regeneration in the UK context. The paper also outlines a predictive model for understanding which types of town centre are likely to benefit from TCM as an approach to regeneration.