REVIEW AND ANALYSIS 37 CHARD HIGH STREET HERITAGE IN CHARD, SOMERSET SAMANTHA BARNES CHARD IS a small market town in Somerset with a population of around 14,000. Like many rural urban centres in the UK, the town retains a historic core of older buildings of great architectural interest and a few hidden gems. And again like many towns, its high street has seen a significant economic decline in the past few decades, reflected in a high rate of vacant shops and chronic underinvestment. The decline in the visual appearance of a town centre and the reduction in the range of goods available inevitably affects the attractiveness of the place to customers, fuelling further decline. Without the footfall required to maintain their revenue, town centres cannot invest and without the investment they cannot win back their customers. Catch 22! What makes this vicious cycle worse is the increasing mobility of customers, first by car to supermarkets and out-of-town shopping centres, and now by the even greater freedom to shop online for the commodities now missing from the high streets. Meanwhile, the increasing number of cars makes it difficult for shoppers to walk from one side of the high street to the other and reduces its appeal. To help combat this decline, national heritage bodies, local government and voluntary sector organisations like the Heritage Trust Network have honed new policies to bring the skills and investment required to help regenerate town and city centres, breaking the cycle and promoting growth. In England the most recent programme led to the designation of 69 High Street Heritage Action Zones (HSHAZ) by Historic England from 2020 to 2024. The programme was funded with £40 million from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s Heritage High Street Fund, £52 million from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Future High Street Fund, £3 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and £8 million from Historic England. It also involved considerable amounts of match funding at the project level from local authorities, charities, community groups and businesses to help drive economic, cultural and community renewal. Local communities were seen as key to the programmes, both as consumers and participants in the programme itself. The HSHAZ projects were on the whole led by the local authorities within which they sit, with a dedicated project officer employed by the authority. Historic England’s role was to provide advice and monitor the schemes, mainly financially, with project officers based in the regional offices, and Chard from the Eastern Gateway (All photos: Jonathan Taylor) The landscaped space of the Eastern Gateway with the Grade II* listed Chard School to the right, which was also repaired with the help of a HSHAZ grant.
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