City Centre Theme - People
People should be at the heart of a transformed city centre.
The city centre needs to become “the place to be” destination, where a wide range of people actively enjoy and engage with its places and spaces. It needs to have a positive image and feel, providing an experience which makes you want to return.
It should inspire confidence that it is a place that is loved and valued to encourage people to invest in it.
We recognise that the city centre is in competition with other towns and cities, and we need to raise our game.
People now make an active choice whether they visit the city centre. In the past, certain facilities meant you had to go into the centre, such as for some types of shopping and banking, but now you do not.
Modern town and city centres can no longer rely on traditional activities such as shopping to survive. They must offer a much greater diversity of uses, activities and experiences to attract people and encourage them to linger.
A city centre needs to offer something for everyone, providing for a diverse range of age groups, tastes and budgets. Those using the centre should better reflect the diverse communities that make Derby the great place it is and who have so much to offer in making it an interesting, vibrant and exciting place.
It is essential that it is an inclusive centre in which everyone feels welcome. All our interventions should be designed with this in mind, ensuring that buildings, places and spaces are accessible to all.
Moving into, out of and around the centre should be easy. Whilst Derby has a compact city centre and it is easy to walk from one end to the other, not everyone can do this, and some are not willing to. Encouraging people to move around the centre using interesting routes between places will be important, particularly to increase the number of people in the historic core.
To make it more inviting, the centre should feel ‘warmer’ and friendlier than it currently does, with a ‘buzz’ and vibrancy about it. It needs to be and feel safer and offer a more relaxing social environment in which people can enjoy relaxing in pleasant surroundings at any time of day.
People are also more mobile these days and are prepared to travel further afield if they think they will have a better experience elsewhere. Recognising this competitive environment, we need to understand and provide what people want from a ‘cool’ modern city centre. This Ambition document is the starting point of this.
