***UPDATED*** We've already lost our Town Centre Manager

We had a town centre manager once. She is said to have been very effective; mainly at knowing who the person was to go to when something needed doing. Unfortunately the council saw otherwise so the post was abolished. Earlier this year it was re-created and the council advertised for a strictly commercial town centre manager. Given the state of the economy’s nose-dive, this sounded to be a good plan. The local councillors, local businesses who were consulted (albeit, hurriedly) and the town centre management committee (mostly made up of local business people) that was formed out of the process from that consultation, all clearly asked for a person with business, specifically retail, experience and associated degrees and experience necessary to implement results-oriented, commercially based efforts. The council ignored this.

But the council hired someone. The person left after around 10 weeks. Not a good start. Several of the committee have asked whether all their work and effort over the past year had been in vain.

A new set of candidates is to be interviewed tomorrow (19th of November) in a process that’s been called into question. So what kind of things do you want the town centre manager to be doing locally, and what kind of person should it be?

UPDATE (26 November): Streatham has a new town centre manager. The latest update is that the new TCM will be starting in post on 4 January and is a person particularly effective at working with the council and managing town centre initiatives in difficult circumstances. I can personally say I’m feeling positive about the local future for the first time in quite a while.