Civic Trust retain Erskine to make NightVision happen
The Civic Trust, Britain’s leading urban environment charity, has asked Erskine to work with them on NightVision, a radical new project to improve town and city centres at night.
NightVision is an initiative that springs from the Civic Trust’s influential research publication NightVision: Town Centres for all, produced for the Department Communities and Local Government in autumn 2006.
Many of Britain’s town centres are not working at night and suffer from a range of management problems. Beyond that, the Civic Trust has revealed that many people feel excluded from their town centres at night and important cultural and economic opportunities are missed as many town centres become drinking “ghettos” dominated by a youth-orientated drinking monoculture. The NightVision team will be working with local authorities and town centre managers to address the issues of management and also to look to the future and help release the creative and economic potential of the evening economy.
The Civic Trust have identified ten core principles essential for a successful evening economy, these are:
- Embody the community health agenda and transform social norms
- Data – a sophisticated market and consumer understanding to go with performance measures and inclusion targets
- Promote local choice; encourage fresh shoots of innovation and growth
- Create family-friendly and child-friendly centres
- Deliver affordable accessibility
- Set new standards in customer care – make the public realm hospitable
- Good planning – ‘a once in a lifetime opportunity’
- Place making: develop a new language of design
- Promote flexible hours and multiple use of public buildings: art galleries, libraries, museums and schools
- Extend shopping and other services into the evening
This year together with Erskine, the Civic Trust will be working on four pilot projects working with local partners to put these principles in to action through innovative particle projects that will lead to real local improvements and the development of good practice.
Follow the progress of these pilots on the Blog which will posted up shortly. If you can’t wait for the blog and would like to get involved in NightVision contact please comment below!!