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Portas Pilot Towns – the websites

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Here is a list of the Mary Portas Pilot Towns and their associated websites (as best as I can find), I have not included council websites unless they have a dedicated page to support the pilot, where it is unclear if a local site is linked to the Portas Pilot Town other than posting updates I have not included it.

Initial Portas Pilot Towns

Bedford, Bedfordshire
Croydon, Greater London http://www.oldtowncroydon.org.uk/guide/portas-pilot-in-croydon/
Dartford, Kent
Bedminster, Bristol – http://www.bedminstertownteam.org
Liskeard, Cornwall – http://loveliskeard.wordpress.com
Margate, Kent – http://margatetownteam.org.uk
Market Rasen, Lincolnshire – http://marketrasenguide.co.uk
Nelson, Lancashire –
Newbiggin by the Sea, Northumberland
Stockport, Greater Manchester
Stockton on Tees, North Yorkshire
Wolverhampton, West Midlands – http://www.wolverhamptonportaspilot.co.uk

Second wave Portas Pilot Towns

Ashford, Kent – https://www.facebook.com/AshfordPortasPilot
Berwick, Northumberland
Braintree, Essex – https://twitter.com/BraintreePortas
Brighton (London Road),West Sussex
Hatfield, Hertfordshire – http://www.hatfieldtown.co.uk/
Leamington (Old Town), Warwickshire – https://en-gb.facebook.com/MaryPortasLeamingtonOldTown
Liverpool (Lodge Lane), Merseyside
Waterloo – Lower Marsh and The Cut, Greater London – http://waterlooquarter.org/
Forest Hill, Kirkdale and Sydenham, Greater London – http://www.see3.co.uk
Chrisp Street, Watney Market, Roman Road (Tower Hamlets), Greater London http://romanroadmarket.blogspot.co.uk/ they are also on twitter https://twitter.com/RomanRoadMarket
Loughborough, East Midlands
Lowestoft, Suffolk
Morecombe, Lancashire
Rotherham, South Yorkshire
Tiverton, Somerset – http://www.tivertontoday.co.uk/index.html

If you know of any websites associated with the Portas Pilot Towns that I have missed or if the website listed for a town is incorrect then please let me know, also if the work from the Portas bid morphed into a web presence from the regular town centre management then let me know and I’ll put that on the list.

If you know of good local sites in the Portas Pilot Towns that are not associated with the pilots but are doing good things then please let me know and I’ll either add them to this list or possibly curate a separate list of them.

Methodology

To create this list I took the list of Portas Pilot Towns from here https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/improving-high-streets-and-town-centres and then searched for place-name Portas Pilot.

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Mike Rawlins

I look after the technical side of things at Talk About Local.
Away from Talk About Local I take photos, fly my quadcopter and walk my two Beagles.
If I'm not doing any of the above then you'll find me volunteering at my local RNLI station as a press officer.
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Comments

  1. For Waterloo, Waterlooquarter.org is the website of the business improvement district (BID) which is leading the Portas Pilot work.

  2. Thanks James, I did see that site but it wasn’t sure if it was the official voice of the pilot or not as it only had 2 references to Portas in it, I’ve added it in now.

  3. Know when the scheme started each Portas Pilot project had a dedicated posterous blog created that those involved in the pilots and local people were encouraged to update (http://portaspilots.com/) but obviously as it was posterous they are no more – don’t know if they were backed up or moved to another service at all??

    Cheers, Nicky

  5. The Bedford Town Team are developing a citizen journalism project called #citizenbedford which reports on Town Team projects as well as other stories. It is supported by Media Trust and local arts & culture newspaper The Bedford Clanger. You can check it out at http://www.citizenbedford.com

  6. Thank Michael, a really useful list.

    Does anyone know if there is a ‘lessons learnt from Portas Pilot towns’ site or report available. Surely Government would want to make the most of the investment…?

    We organised a seminar last week in Taunton on how creativity & culture can help revitalise the High Street, which included PP’s Liskeard and Bedminster – presentations available in 3 news items on our News Hub, first one here http://www.vspsomerset.org.uk/news/creative-high-streets-seminar-presentations-part-1

    One minor amendment to the list is that Tiverton is in Devon, not Somerset. Sadly Somerset has no Portas Pilots, just many enthusiastic Town Teams trying to make a difference.

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