Beyond Bricks and Mortar: Building Town Centres That Last
Beyond Bricks and Mortar: Building Town Centres That Last
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The construction impulse is seductive. In town centres across Wales, the promise of visible change, a new quarter, a revived façade, is often the first thing politicians reach for.
But as the Audit Wales review of town centre regeneration bluntly put it, “funding is heavily focused on capital and physical regeneration but often the challenge for local authorities is insufficient revenue to fund posts, especially town-centre management, marketing, data analysis, land assembly, and legal services.”
That mismatch is not mere bureaucratic niggle. It is a structural fault line in how we invest in places. Because once the scaffolding comes down and the ribbon is cut, the real work begins. Without people, systems, and budgets to sustain what has been built, the shiny new infrastructure can all too quickly start to fray.
In Wales, schemes like the Transforming Towns fund are laudably trying to shift the dial. The Pride in Place scheme promises revenue support, but only to a select number of towns, implicitly acknowledging that many others also need help simply to keep the lights on and the programmes running.
This is where BIDs, Business Improvement Districts, and equivalent revenue-led vehicles could play a critical role. Their strength lies in running the day-to-day: place marketing, events, business engagement, data capture, cleaning, small grants, and branding. These are not glamorous line items in a capital grant application, but they are the connective tissue that keeps regeneration alive.
Cardiff provides some telling lessons. On Queen Street, cracked paving slabs have required temporary tarmac patches that may be practical but send an unmistakable signal of underinvestment in maintenance.
And at Central Square, while the redevelopment has delivered modern transport infrastructure, it has often been criticized for lacking personality and focusing too heavily on crowd control and queuing for events.
For what should be the primary gateway to Wales’ capital, it feels like a missed opportunity to create a welcoming civic heart that celebrates the city rather than a space defined by functionality alone.
Together these examples show how the absence of long-term stewardship and creative thinking can undermine otherwise ambitious investments.
By contrast, many international examples show what can be achieved when long-term stewardship is prioritized. In Bilbao, investment went beyond the iconic Guggenheim to include well-maintained squares and streets designed for residents as much as visitors.
This culture of continuous upkeep reinforces civic pride and ensures that regeneration does not just deliver eye-catching projects but spaces people genuinely want to use.
Beyond that, projects often require complementary soft infrastructure: property enforcement, dealing with problem landowners, leasing advice, small grants for shopfront improvements, and permit regimes.
These are the legal, administrative and relationship-building costs that underpin any successful regeneration. Audit Wales found that local authorities across Wales often lack the capacity, skills and multi-year certainty to deliver these.
Drawing lessons from both the UK and abroad, the High Streets Task Force has repeatedly urged that to revive town centres you must build with people, not just for them. That means stronger governance, active engagement, continuous programming, monitoring and flexibility. The built fabric is essential, but insufficient on its own.
In short, we cannot build our way to sustainable town centres. The shiny new quarter or retail block might attract attention, but without investment in people, programming, data, maintenance and organizational longevity, they risk becoming underused or deteriorating.
As 2028 approaches and the wave of projects accelerates in Cardiff and beyond, the danger is that we double down on what is visible and neglect what is invisible yet vital.
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