Vital and Viable Louth
Louth's Vital and Viable workshop took place on 24 June 2019.
Once we received the Institute of Place Managements report for Louth, we arranged a follow up meeting with the community on 12 September 2019 to gather feedback and ideas generated from the report. A further meeting with the community on 5 December 2019 gave a steer to the approach of focusing on Place Promotion and Public Realm as the two key areas to take forward.
Feedback from the Institute of Place Management on Louth:
"Louth is a fascinating town with an interesting history. It still has a wonderful built environment. It is more fortunate than most in that it has a strong retail offer still with an excellent range of independent shops and the presence of major banks still with branches. The market is clearly also an important feature. The workshop heard about the role of arts, culture and entertainment in the town. There is clearly a strong base but there were recognised issues and problems. Although the relative isolation of the town has perhaps meant it has not felt the full force of economic, technological or societal changes that have impacted many other centres, we do not believe that Louth can think it is exempt.
"It would be prudent to introduce changes now so that change is better understood and monitored, so that some basic things can be addressed and evidence-based plans made for the future. We think this should build on the workshop and the sense of community we experienced in Louth to ensure it is a place that best serves the needs of its residents and users and is appreciated by all its community members and those lucky enough to visit.
"To summarise what we say above, we think you should look at governance and management for the town centre, you should build evidence on how it is performing by gathering footfall and other data, you should look to put the town on the map by reaching out more widely, improve the welcome, experience and visual appearance of the town, and keep under review how best to meet the needs of the growing catchment and incoming visitors."
We have committed to the following areas of improvement of the town:
Creating a Public Realm Strategy for our Market Towns leading to signage and street scene improvements for each town
Better promotion of the town by:
Developing a Love Louth microsite, linking to the Love Lincolnshire Wolds website. Businesses will be able to list themselves free of charge and will be encouraged to share special offers and incentives through the site.
Working to boost the promotion of the town's rich food and drink offer through a food trail, and a national marketing campaign
Producing a tourism video for the town
Providing support to Louth events through funding, promotion and evaluation
Improve communications between groups, businesses and local authorities by hosting annual town meeting
Louth Action Plan
This plan (PDF) [1MB] (opens new window) has been developed purely from business and community feedback during our workshops and follow up sessions. We've listened to everything you told us in our workshops and collated these plans with a view to explore all the ideas you generated. We can't commit to delivering every aspect mentioned, but we are keen to see how we can work with you and seek funding for as many of the goals and aspirations you've suggested. Therefore, if there is a particular area you would like to support us with please do get in touch using the link below.
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