What is it about?
The Market Towns Initiative was a community-led, public sector supported, programme designed to help people who live in England's country ("market") towns to identify, and then capitalize on, the economic, social and environmental strengths of "their towns". It operated between 2000 and 2005/6.
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Why is it important?
The programme had strengths and weaknesses. This paper discusses them. Broadly speaking, the programme worked well. This paper explains the background to the programme, and lists it achievements (and drawbacks) in the context of England's government structures.
Perspectives
I think the Market Towns Initiative worked because real effort was made to involve local people, and - in a sense - to help them to help themselves. It was seen by some, with some justification, as a centrally-imposed programme, controlled by central government organizations (mainly the Countryside Agency and Regional Development Agencies). It wasn't perfect, was relatively short-lived, but did hint at what could be done, given appropriate longer term support. Looking back from today's austerity-heavy landscape, it was a golden age of ambition and good intentions!
Dr Gordon Morris
University of Exeter
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Leading Communities: Community-led Development in England’s Small Towns: the Market Towns Initiative, Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, December 2012, UTS ePress,
DOI: 10.5130/cjlg.v0i0.3056.
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