High Street Regeneration Scheme Launch

I was pleased last week to attend the launch of the new £3million regeneration scheme for Bedford High Street. The Bedford High Street Townscape Heritage Initiative will help to revitalise the High Street through a range of measures intended to preserve and enhance its historical status. The project, which runs for five years through to the summer of 2016, will see traditional shop fronts restored, building facades upgraded, lost architectural details reinstated and upper floors brought back into use, and vital structural works will be carried out. In addition to the Council's funding for the project, we have been successful in obtaining £850,000 of grant funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, while Bedford BID is contributing £100,000. Local business owners and landlords will also contribute up to over £1.4 million in investment in Bedford's High Street.

The project is an exciting one for the High Street and for the town centre as a whole, which will benefit from a vibrant, bustling High Street which is bursting with its historical character. I look forward to monitoring progress closely as the scheme progresses. It was a pleasure to discuss the scheme with a number of local business owners at the launch event last week, and with me in the picture here are gentlemen from two renowned independent retailers on the High Street in the form of Vic Warner from Goldings and James Simmonds from Harrison & Simmonds