Let’s make St Neots a centre for culture, creativity and fun

The £12.8m investment in our town is a one-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine what St Neots stands for. With a focus on connecting people, we can unlock its full potential and put the spark back into our town.

It’s great to see HDC beginning its consultation with residents about the Future High Streets Fund project. This is a massive opportunity to make significant improvements to our town centre, and it couldn’t come at a more critical time. The High Street is struggling, with some big losses in recent months. Other landmark buildings – the Old Falcon, the Oast Lounge – have been boarded up for years. Some people think our town is in terminal decline.

I don’t. I love St Neots, and I know that – with the right investment – we can really turn things around.

The six Future High Streets Fund projects are all really welcome: bringing the Old Falcon back into use, redeveloping the Priory Centre / Priory Quarter, a new waterfront route, plus improvements to the Market Square, High Street and St Neots Road Bridge. However, changing the physical environment won’t be enough to get the maximum benefit from this investment.

What this town needs – above all else – is a new vision, something that we will become known for throughout Cambridgeshire and beyond. We are a market town, but not many people visit the town to use the market (although that’s beginning to change with the much-improved St Neots Farm & Craft Market on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month). With the loss of Beales and Dorothy Perkins, few people visit the town for clothes shopping (although we still have some great shops that are well worth visiting). Regardless, it’s hard for councils to change people’s shopping habits.

What councils can do is to invest in public buildings and open spaces, and to create a fertile environment for local communities to shape their town for the better. That means a joined-up, people-centric approach to capital investment, along with cash to pay staff to help build communities. Let me explain…

My vision is for a town-wide project that brings people from all walks of life together. To start, we need a top-class venue at the Priory Centre that attracts professional touring music, theatre and dance productions to our town. This will turn the town centre into a vibrant cultural hub, attracting visitors from other villages and towns. A thriving cultural scene will also support the creative sector that is already growing fast with support from Neotists and Art&Soul Cafe.

Creative jobs will be a massive growth area over the next two decades, as artificial intelligence disrupts the jobs market beyond recognition. Let’s get in there early with a business community that actively encourages and supports creative sector jobs. This can be achieved through affordable incubator units and studios, ultrafast internet and high-tech equipment such as 3D printers – plus staff on the ground to nurture growth. Councils can make this happen.

Let’s have lifelong learning… mentoring for entrepreneurs, skills shares, careers coaching and learner-led training – where people say what they want to learn and facilitators make it happen. Let’s get away from the idea of formal education and Job Centres and create an environment where people of all ages are given the tools, confidence and ambition to contribute to their community. Councils can make this happen, too.

My background is in community organising and volunteering, and I know how much these can contribute to the quality of life for local people. Let’s create an environment where community initiatives are truly celebrated and empowered. If someone wants to do something for their community, let someone else worry about fundraising, marketing, risk assessments and insurance. We need staff who are community enablers… there to say “Yes”. Councils can make this happen.

Most importantly, we need the Future High Streets Fund projects to be built for the future, and that means designed to be carbon neutral. As a planet we need to get to net zero in a matter of years, not decades. It makes no sense to be building anything that will pump carbon into the atmosphere. Let’s get things right, starting today.

HDC can make this happen. We need to tell them that it’s important.

So, what does all this mean in practice? It means designing our public buildings and open spaces with a clear understanding of what we want to achieve. For me, that’s a top-class venue and a Market Square that’s ready for community and cultural events. It means business incubator units and other high-spec facilities for entrepreneurs, creative professionals, business meetings and community groups.

And then it means a budget for staff… to run the cultural events, to build the business communities, to create lifelong learning opportunities, to enable community projects. This staff budget doesn’t need to come out of the £12.8m – the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority has some unspent funds for St Neots as part of its £5.8m investment that was announced back in 2018.

But we need a joined-up approach. Let’s not spend the £12.8m to improve the buildings without a clear, shared vision of how they will be used. Let’s agree a vision for our town, and then develop the public buildings and spaces – plus the staff to deliver cultural, business and community growth – in tandem.

If you agree, please use this opportunity to tell HDC what you want from the Future High Streets Fund projects. Yes, the infrastructure improvements are absolutely welcome, but let’s spend it in parallel with an investment in people to build communities in our town centres.

Communities that connect people through leisure, culture, jobs, learning and community support. Communities that say that St Neots is open for business as a centre for culture, creativity and fun.