Derby City Council has highlighted how a nine-year collaborative partnership scheme between Historic England, the Council and local retailers to revive Derby’s historic shopping streets is celebrating success.
The scheme has brought 2,800 square metres of floor space back into use, created 42 new jobs, and helped the Cathedral Quarter win the category of Best City Location in the ‘Great British High Street Award’ for 2016. As a result, between 2008 and 2012 Derby weathered the recession far better than other cities. In the UK as a whole, high streets suffered an average 26% decline in footfall. But research in Derby’s Cathedral Quarter shows that it remained vibrant: footfall fell by only 7-9%, helping to make Derby much more resilient than similar cities.