Exploring with Gravesend Town Centre manager

It’s a grey day when I meet Graham in front of LV21. Graham is the Gravesend town centre manager and he has a long association with the town. His first job in Gravesend was as St George’s Centre, then working at The Woodville, becoming the Theatre Manager before taking on town centre management. I’ve heard the term before but never really considered what a town centre manager is, or does.

Over the course of the next hour I learn that it’s sort of a bit of everything in the pedestrian area of Gravesend – from spotting broken paving slabs and booking repair to managing relationships with shop owners to coordinating events and activities. It currently also involves managing Covid signage and supporting a team of staff making sure that people are observing Covid regulations.

Somehow, within the first ten minutes of meeting we are talking about New York and showing each other photos of previous visits. Graham is keen to begin travelling again when restrictions lift – he’s visited NY in every season except summer and last year had to cancel a trip. He is keen to visit Gravesend, the neighbourhood in Brooklyn. I laugh as I recall my first online explorations of Gravesend, Kent and getting confused with some of what I read as I’d accidentally crossed the Atlantic in my research. Graham is a keen street photographer, you can see his photos on Instagram @photographybymrg.  One of the reasons he loves New York is the rich potential for taking photographs. He also enjoys travelling up to Brick Lane in London, very close to where I live, to take photographs on Sunday’s when the markets bring the streets alive. He’s made friends with lots of the street artists and local characters. I offer to bring him a beigel from the famous 24hour shop on Brick Lane next time we meet. Graham regularly photographs in Gravesend – with his images receiving lots of local praise. I wonder if being a photographer helps him look at this place more closely?

As we walk and talk I learn that one of Graham’s tasks is to do a monthly audit of shop occupancy – if shops are empty or in use. It’s hard to know at the moment what might happen, all non-essential retail is currently shut. What might reopen? What will not return? Graham is very proud of all the independent businesses in Gravesend, it adds a local distinctiveness you won’t find anywhere else. As we walk down High Street he chats about lots of the shops, one empty unit has been taken on during lockdown. It will be a sports clinic rather than a retail space. We talk about how service and experience based offerings might become the future of High Streets in general, and I think back to my conversation with Joe, about towns becoming places to do and experience things – rather than buy things. 

I find myself silently wishing all these small businesses good luck, wondering where their owners are, if they have been eligible for financial support during this time. My husband runs his own business which has been impacted, he’s only been eligible for a small amount of help. He doesn’t have overheads, and we had savings so we are very lucky but it’s been really tough. What will reopen when they can?

As we walk along New Road Graham talks about the impact of Bluewater – the large out of town shopping centre – on Gravesend. The town used to have a Marks and Spencer, a BHS and a Debenhams. These large, trusted brands would draw people into the town from the villages of Gravesham. As people switched to shopping at Bluewater the Gravesend shops were used less and less. Apparently the Marks and Spencer became the shop with the highest number of returns in the UK, people would buy in Bluewater and return to Gravesend. It no longer became profitable and was closed. BHS has long gone, Debenhams is closing down too now. It’s a familiar story, a large out of town shopping centre signalling the death knell for high street shopping. I wonder what impact the Pandemic will have. We have gone without physical shops for so long, many are used to internet shopping – will that mark the end of out of town retail? I worry about people’s jobs and livelihoods but I’m also interested in what could positively come out of this. We buy too much, more than we need and it’s completely unsustainable for the planet. Evidence suggests it doesn’t make us happier. Maybe it’s idealistic to hope that our addiction to stuff might be halted but I hope it is. I’m increasingly a believer in the need for Universal Basic Income, that out economy and world is changing so quickly that connecting work to income is no longer viable. That meeting all our human rights can be achieved more efficiently this way. That’s probably for another blog.

It also leaves the question of high streets – what do they become? Who do they serve? The out of town retail malls were inaccessible to lots of people, designed around cars and those who can travel and spend more time out of the house. Internet shopping relies on having access to the internet and banking – something not everyone has. High Streets grew out of markets,  starting out as places to trade basic needs and as an engine of local economies, social life and democracies. Increasingly they became places to shop as a leisure activity. But how we live has changed. What could they become in the future? 

Graham talks about how differently the communities of Gravesend use public space. The Sikh community, especially older men, meet on benches to chat and pass the time. Eastern European men often meet for a beer and cigarette at the end of the working day, to share news and connect. Some of this may be driven by the lack of space at home, or other community space to gather but some of it is an attitude towards public space.  

These gatherings can sometimes be seen as problematic. I think about my chat with Michael, the priest at St Aidan’s and how he noticed that many of his community retreat to their homes each evening. Graham and I talk about how in other European countries public space is more animated, with streetside cafes, and people meeting outside. I wonder about UK weather – is it the damp that sends us scurrying inside? Maybe that’s why our pub culture has flourished.  Weather must certainly play a part but I also think it’s an attitude, I recall family stories of Coombe Buildings, Gorsty Hill in the Black Country (West Midlands) when life was lived much more communally. I can’t help thinking that the political leadership of the 1980s has a lot to answer for. I also have a personal bug bear about how much of the space we think is public land is actually privately owned and Graham and I chat about the ownership of land in Gravesend. The St Georges centre is owned by an investment firm, people’s pensions are tied up many of these places. On so many levels that seems unsustainable, and undesirable. It’s an example of how the inter-generational contracts, that we will take care of those who came before and they will take care of what they pass down, have been dismantled.

I also see a huge opportunity for arts and culture to step into this space. To reclaim and recreate our public spaces as places of connection, learning and play. I daydream about a high street with a patchwork of small businesses, places to sit and chat, food growing projects, a Happiness café, arts spaces to do and watch. Places centred around community and care. It’s exciting that Gravesham Borough Council will be taking over shop units in St George’s Centre to create an arts centre space in the next few weeks.

The next time I visit will, hopefully, be the first stage of the Covid unlocking with people able to meet in groups of six outdoors – I wonder how the town will feel then?

                

This used to be a pub with an open mic night and apparently David Bowie read some poetry here (before his fame) and he got boo-ed off stage.