15 key thinking place points on our 15th birthday

Today we held our inaugural place perspective event on the occasion of our 15th birthday ‘Place: what’s the future?’ and I was delighted to be joined by two of the leading thinkers and practitioners of all things place: Professor Martin Reeves, CEO of Coventry City Council and Professor Cathy Parker, Co-Chair of the Institute of Place Management at Manchester Metropolitan University and Research Lead for the High Streets Task Force.

Our 15 top takeaway points from the session were as follows;

1. “Inspirational local leaders, working in collaboration with all sections of their community have put a buzz back into their town centre” Sir John Timpson. The Leadership role is to inspire.
2. Place leadership is not Place administration; it is not just about the Local Authorities.
3. Culture and connecting people to each other is the greatest currency of place.
4. It cannot just be about recovery; it must be the reimagining of place. That’s what our people and places deserve.
5. Failure of place leadership is failure to make change happen in places.
6. The essence of place is not about administrative boundaries.
7. Differentiation will be everything; we don’t want vanilla it’s boring. We want pistachio, mint choc chip and double choc fudge!
8. Looking ahead experience, not consumption, will be everything in a place.
9. Stop just being fascinated about buildings and their design, the spaces between them are where people play and learn.
10. Be authentic and celebrate your assets otherwise you will be caught out.
11. Don’t be insular; you can be proud of living and working in more than one place at the same time, such as your town, county, region and country!
12. Anchor institutions will facilitate future collaboration enabling everyone to be heard and reimagine their place.
13. Simply undertaking organisational change will not create the great places people desire.
14. Lots of so-called place strategies are actually place-less, generic, uninspiring and unachievable.
15. The pandemic has shown the brilliance and resilience of our people and their ability to do extraordinary things. People make places, not buildings.

If you missed the webinar live you can catch up below