Centre for Towns website goes live

In the last couple of days the website of a new think tank, the Centre for Towns, has gone live.  One of its founders is Lisa Nandy, the Labour MP for Wigan, someone I have a great deal of time for.

The Centre describes itself as an independent non-partisan organisation dedicated to providing research and analysis of our towns and points out that cities receive a good deal of attention (and) that there should be equal attention paid to the viability and prosperity of our towns.

Anyone with an interest in Beeston's wellbeing and future should join the Centre's mailing list. Their first report is about the ageing of towns. Below is the report heading together with the executive summary which mentions Nottingham (which is one of the UK's 'core cities' so outside the remit of the Centre).

The report raises questions, especially in relation to Nottingham and how its tightly drawn boundaries distort data, plus the fact they treat Clifton as 'a town' (see their map below) distinct from Nottingham whilst not including Bingham or Ruddington.

Nottingham's ageing population I would argue doesn't move far. Susan and I moved from Lenton to Beeston, as have others we know. For all intents and purposes we are still in Nottingham if you ignore the local government boundary which separates the two places. These artificial boundaries distort reality. Add the towns ringing Nottingham with the city, then look at the data and I am confident that the Nottingham conurbation will not be deprived of oldies.

Within conurbations there can be distinct places which elsewhere, on their own, would be regarded as towns and should be treated as such.

I look at the map below and someone unknowing might see this as a recent creation, yet it isn't. A tram route, then a trolleybus route, followed by a bus route has been linking Ripley to Nottingham via Heanor, Eastwood, Kimberley and Nuthall since 1903. For parochial and political reasons this communal connectivity has been ignored and I hope this is something the Centre for Towns will look at — how towns and communities define themselves.

This is a captured webpage from the Centre for Towns interactive map. 

The website also includes lists of 'towns' and 'places' which show how the Centre has determined the size of a town, whether it is 'small', 'medium' or 'large'. Beeston and Long Eaton is classified as 'medium' whilst Clifton, Eastwood and Kimberley are 'small'.

I am a great believer in comparative data/ information, so I hope this will become a feature of Centre for Towns work. In other words comparing 'like' towns within each category.

I look forward to following the progress of the Centre for Towns with interest and wish it well for the future.