Action plan to improve Portsmouth's beleaguered shopping areas including better markets, street entertainment and a dedicated Business Improvement District

A Portsmouth City Council scrutiny panel has drafted a new strategy for the city’s high streets - still suffering in the aftershock of the COVID-19 pandemic - in a plan containing nine recommendations, and culminates the feedback given by businesses, advisors and retail managers to the panel.

These include providing a Business Improvement District (BID), a business-led and usually a business funded body, where independent traders can communicate with the council through a consultant to “drive a business plan” based on the needs of traders and residents. It’s also recommended that the council fund the BID “in the region of up to £100,000”.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Peter Candlish, expressed concern about “signing blank cheques” adding: “My understanding is we are recommending quite a lot of expenditure and I thought that was outside our brief”. Additionally, he raised caution towards the council employing a high street coordination team, instead of a single coordinator.

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The report also recommends creating “further street entertainment” to encourage more footfall and for the council to raise more awareness of these performances. The delivery and greater awareness of cultural events in high streets were also recommended as ways to increase high street spending. The creation of a trial of semi-permanent market stalls for hire has also been proposed, to “improve the amenity and layout of markets, particularly in Commercial Road and Palmerston Road”.

After a series of meetings, the panel heard from countless advisors, council workers and businesses. During the meetings, it became “clear” that the dissipation of the council’s city centre management team in 2016 was a major factor in the decline of the city’s high streets “Commercial Road’s in particular”. It adds that a BID would be “highly beneficial for Portsmouth if done in the right way and targeted wisely”.

The report also suggested the general trend is moving away from “the traditional retail function of high streets to something more akin to a conglomerate of experiences with social and experiential a higher priority than retail and functional”.