Town Centre Recovery and Development Plans for NHDC - AWARD

NHDC wishes to commission a consultant to help them and their partners devise covid recovery and development plans for each of the main towns in the district. The district of North Hertfordshire has three market towns, Hitchin, Baldock and Royston, and Letchworth Garden City, the world's first Garden City. The strengths and character of each town centre differs as does their resilience to the impacts of the Covid pandemic. See section 5 below for more information about the towns. Within this context, as a part of the North Herts Welcome Back Fund programme, the Council wishes to work with key stakeholders in each town to map out a) a high level strategic and effective covid recovery plan for its town centres in the short term together with b) a medium- and longer- term development strategy framework to assist the town centres develop successfully over the next decade. As part of the council's emerging Local Plan, Policy SP4 Town Centres, Local Centres and Community Shops makes reference to reviewing each of its town centre strategies. This work will commence within 12 months of the adoption of the Local Plan and will inform whether it is necessary to review the retail strategy set out in the local Plan. This commission will help inform the scope of work associated with review of the town centre strategies. The Council is seeking suitability experienced consultancy support with this initial strategic work in preparing plans for each of its town centres.