The Place Management Conference 2025: A Crisis in Local Government Finance

Have we reached a crisis point in how we invest in high streets, town centres and city centres?

Multiple economic shocks since the turn of the century, rapid technological change and an ageing population have created a toxic fiscal environment. The result is the suffocation of funding for place management.

The impacts are multiple. Reduced allocation of resource for town centre management, cuts to arts, culture and events, gaps in service for maintenance and street cleaning, fewer police, blockages in the planning pipeline, a reliance on ad hoc government grants for regeneration - the challenges are endless.

And these challenges go beyond our local government members, impacting BIDs who have to wrestle with an existential threat to ‘additionality’. It's time to take stock.

The next ATCM Place Management Conference will focus on the challenges we face in funding the day-to-day job of supporting town centres. We will ask how things…