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Tameside council has been allocated a sum of money to assist with re-opening the high street safely.
The survey was designed to obtain peoples’ observations around how they felt going back to high street after lockdown, suggestions they may have for making town centres safer and highlighting any hot-spots they may have encountered.
The allocation has very stringent eligibility criteria and covers four areas of work.
1. The development of action plans to assist with re-opening the high street safely.
2. Work associated with a public communications plan solely around safety measures/guidance involved with re-opening the high street.
3. Work associated with a business communications plan solely around safety measures/guidance involved with re-opening the high street.
4. Small temporary works to footpaths and public areas within areas defined by the guidance as eligible.
Tameside council can only claim back eligible expenditure as defined in the guidance attached to the allocation and only against the four areas listed above. It cannot be used to encourage people to shop locally the emphasis has to be on safety and adherence to guidelines. Enforcement, marshals, assistance for businesses and town centre improvements not specifically related to safety in the town centre are deemed ineligible.
 
In total, 278 responses were received. 44% of those who responded thought that there was not enough signage and messaging in local town centres, whilst 40% thought there was enough. The remaining 16% were either not sure or had not been to a local town centre recently.
People’s top two reasons for not using the high street or only visiting when necessary were:
- Non-adherence to guidance – lack of social distancing and non-use of face masks by other members of the public
- The appearance of no enforcement of the regulations in the town centres
There was insufficient evidence to confirm if people were using their local centres more now than pre-Covid-19.
The way people travel to and from the town centres does not appear to have changed significantly from pre-pandemic. The majority of people either walked or used their car to get to the town centre before and are still doing so. However, a small percentage of people did say that their reluctance to use public transport had influenced how often they visited the high street currently.
The responses to the consultation were analysed and have been used to inform both the business and public communications plans. For example, as new guidelines come on stream a greater use of social media will be used as this appeared from responses to be the preferred medium for distributing information expressed by consultees. Posters, banners and signage will still be used on the town centres for guidance.
Responses relating to peoples track and trace experience have been passed through to the service dealing with this aspect of the Covid-19 response to inform this process.
There was a suggestion within the survey that an information sheet with current guidelines be sent to each household as an information document. This is being considered but given the changing guidance due to nature of the pandemic thought will be needed around how to facilitate this without causing additional confusion.
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