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community town centres

What can community businesses do for our high streets?

Community-based businesses and organisations can play a vital part in repurposing ailing high streets. But it is not a quick fix, and it demands a rethink of what creates value in town and city centres.  A new report by the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research finds that high streets present new opportunities for community […]

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change community New Start archive public policy

Hindsight, hubris and hope

Twenty years ago today the first issue of New Start magazine was published, with a mission described as ‘bringing together the partners in community renewal’. I and two colleagues set it up and recruited a team of writers, advertising and production staff to fill what we saw as both an evidence and a commercial gap: […]

Categories
place social justice

The peculiar persistence of place

If you live in Barnsley, I was once told, you can be as rude about it as you like and nobody will bat an eyelid. But if you don’t and you suggest it’s anything less than God’s holiday home when the Almighty fancies a break, heaven help you. For Barnsley, read anywhere with a strong […]