Portas Pilot

I was referring to Loughborough susie and agree, our need is (marginally) greater than yours.

It seems silly to me that we have a brand new shopping centre (with yet another blinking Tesco) rather than either refurbishing, or rebuilding, our existing High Street. It happens in lots of towns and cities, around here Leicester, Derby and Nottingham have had huge new malls built which take shoppers away from the traditional heart of the town which subsequently die or have to have huge amounts of money (more than a measly £100,000) spent on them to regenerate them. Though I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.

hundred grand I suppose an be well spent, or not, depending on how clever and creative people are. It will, I think have been awarded on the basis of a "bid" - but in the grand scheme of things, it is not exactly major regeneration money is it.

My town too has been awarded £100,000 - some of which will apparently go towards a bandstand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thats my worry its actually quite a small amount of money. I am also concnerend though about any bureaucracy associated with the spending of it, how long it will take to get results and how and who will say its a success. Well done on getting the money though our town Melton Mowbray bid for it and didnt get it Loughborough did and I think they might actually need it more than we do. Our Borough Council has already done a lot to improve current shops fronts, the town square and the leisure facilties - we just need some big name shops now as a draw for the smaller ones.

Big question kitty!! I guess if the money is well targeted and gets a couple of businesses off the ground it may generate some work as well as stretching to improve a key site or two. But it is not a lot of money!