Expert comment - Professor Thiemo Fetzer responds to the Government’s “Pride in Place” agenda

Expert comment - Professor Thiemo Fetzer responds to the Government’s “Pride in Place” agenda

The government has announced a new “Pride in PlaceLink opens in a new window” programme – empowering communities to buy up boarded shops, reclaim derelict pubs, and restore local pride – which aligns closely with the findings of Professor Fetzer's researchLink opens in a new window into the political impact of high street decline.

Responding to the announcement, Professor Thiemo Fetzer said, “A lot of what we might consider to be local decline, in particular in the retail sector, away from brick-and-mortar shops towards remote consumption creates winners and losers. For many people going shopping involved going to a cafe and involved social consumption. These opportunities disappeared because the big shift to online commerce has killed or destroyed a lot of this high street ecosystem.

“People see shops are closing up and they feel like everything is going down. The High Street was a type of meeting place where older people in particular could chat and meet. There is a belief that the social side of the town centre has disappeared, it’s gone, when, in fact, it’s just capturing, to a certain degree, a changing economy. That perception of decline is vital to the populist backlash – the narrative that sits quite hard.

“Central government has to work with local stakeholders because they’re on the ground. They see how local change works and every local context requires a different solution.

“The Pride in Place programme offers a rare chance to combine community empowerment with structural adaptation – revitalising high streets, restoring social consumption spaces, and rebuilding the foundations of pride, resilience, and democratic trust.”

• Read a longer discussion from Professor Fetzer in The Conversation: To fend off Reform, mainstream parties must address the tangible decline of British towns