Introducing The Hyper-Local High Street

Nick Durham

Head of Cardiff Studio

The shift to hyper-local high streets offers not only a chance to reinvent urban design but improves wellbeing, fosters community spirit and boosts local economies.

The impact of Covid-19 and the local, national and international response has had a dramatic effect on all of our lives, but the seismic shift in the way we work has also triggered positive consequences. Vast numbers of us have continued to work from home since March 2020, in line with government advice, and as a result we are spending much more time and money in our local community.

Even when restrictions lift, the trend towards home working looks set to stay. This has had an incredibly tough impact on city centres, with latest figures for Cardiff showing a 30.9% decrease in footfall. What it has also signalled is a reinvention of the local high street; workers traditionally located in city centre offices are now living and working in their community. They are popping out to local shops and cafes during the week and using facilities and businesses in their neighbourhood. Together they are contributing to a revival of the hyper-local high street.

This can already be seen in the way shopping and food hubs in residential areas are changing. Cardiff’s bustling Wellfield Road has recently been transformed to make it more pedestrian friendly with wider footpaths and the removal of cars, allowing the local shops and cafes to spill out onto the street. Plans announced for Cowbridge Road and Whitchurch Road, home to Bake Off star Cocorico Patisserie, include new walkways and street furniture, rain gardens and flowering perennials.

We’ve been looking at the impact of this on health and wellbeing. As local authorities adapt and improve the high streets of today, we must also plan the communities of the future. We believe hyper-local is here to stay – and will be about much more than shopping and coffee. Our predictions include the decentralisation of services and the creation of local healthcare and wellbeing hubs, a transport infrastructure which focuses on active and public transport. We foresee an increasing focus on connection with nature such as community gardens, appreciated now like never before, which can also bring food production closer to home.

The worlds of home and work are merging, as is the role, purpose and offer of the local high street. As shops adapt to social distancing, restricting numbers in store with customers waiting outside, a different kind of hyper-local economy is emerging. An important feature is the adaptive use of existing ‘slack spaces’. Put simply, this means allowing communities to inhabit and repurpose underused areas of their local high street in response to social, cultural and economic opportunities, which broadens appeal and sustains the popularity of independents and regional provenance.

The good news is that the Welsh government is already indicating support for such initiatives. Our new-found interest in our locality, combined with an expanded network of community-based working hubs, together with improved transport infrastructure, will offer choices beyond a simple home/office split. We are falling back in love with our local high street - though not quite as we knew it. What a hugely positive legacy from an incredibly challenging time.