Retail specialist Mary Portas (pictured) is no stranger to Hoylake as she featured the 3 Sisters green grocers in one her television shows a couple of years ago. She could return to Market Street again if Hoylake Village Life (HVL) are successful in their attempt to secure a place for Hoylake as one of the 12 Town Teams that Portas is looking to work with. Here’s what HVL have to say about the project:
The Government has recently announced the ‘Portas Pilot Prospectus’ – an invitation for 12 deserving communities to form a ‘Town Team’ to make a real difference to their town centres by bringing them back to life. This follows the recent independent review of the high street carried out by Mary Portas who has made, in all, 28 recommendations, chief of which is to set up ‘Town Teams’ and pilot these across the country.
So what is a ‘Town Team’? It is a representative group of enthusiastic local people who would work together in partnership on behalf of the whole community to make a real difference to their town and bring it back to life. This would involve local groups, local businesses, retailers, landlords and the local authority all collaborating to devise an agreed common plan to make improvements and deliver much needed vitality and charm to the high street. The prize for the successful ‘Town Teams’ is to gain the expertise of Mary Portas and her team and the backing of the government to take their plan forward as well as a share of the £1 million made available to implement this pilot scheme.
The ‘Portas Pilot’ was only announced on 4 February and time is short so this letter is to invite you to express your support ‘in principle’ for an application to be submitted for and on behalf of the whole community of Hoylake. Because of the work already undertaken and in the pipeline through its ‘Vision’ neighbourhood planning initiative, we believe that HVL is well placed to respond to this welcome scheme. Of course, there is no guarantee of success but, with the very apparent support of all the people of Hoylake, we stand as good a chance as any other town of presenting a persuasive case. We have already sought and secured the support of our MP, Esther McVey as well as local Councillors Eddie Boult, Gerry Ellis and John Hale. However, the prospectus requires us to demonstrate the widest possible support for the application.
This is an unusual if not unique opportunity for us to do something positive for the town we all enjoy but which we know could be even better so we very much hope that you are persuaded to show your support by contacting us by email, write to us at 6 Market Street, Hoylake CH47 2AE, or phone Rosie Saville on 0151 632 5910 as we need to name supporting businesses and organisations in the application.
The quickest way to respond with an expression of support is by clicking HERE.
It will help if you tell us very briefly whether you are a resident, or whether you represent a business or organisation.
From what I heard from those who had to deal with her last time, she’s at right %$&* and no mistake.
From seeing her show about the three sisters Mary is no peach, but if the store is sucessful then she knows her buisness.