What do we need in West Bridgford? Is anyone brave enough to really say? Anyone who lives here knows it’s great but too much of a good thing isn’t good for anyone.
Remember, in West Bridgford that there are lots of diverse people with fantastic potential. How do we bring this out in everyone, this creativity, this awareness that it’s not just about us as individuals?
We’ve got lots of estate agents, we have banks, we have supermarkets, schools and with the Arena and all the fitness and sports facilities. We’re doing pretty well.
And we now have a joint councils project with the West Bridgford Commissioners and Mick Burrows and Kim Cassidy and Tim Richmond OBE, to promote independent retailing in West Bridgford: to me the whole space of Central Avenue needs to be given over to the small business. We need to understand that all the markets and events aren’t just marketing for banks and building societies and estate agents, they’re people with business aspirations that want a voice in how the space and atmosphere of West Bridgford can be even better.
I think that all the banks and estate agents should move out of the central part of the streets and sponsor (meaning put their brand onto a range of small business space as a sponsor).
Why can’t we think about the whole of the retail space potentially and look at it all in terms of a social audit? Redevelop spaces currently dominated by the banks and the estate agencies, move them (kindly, so they can be partners in the new space) so that they are either only one of a kind around West Bridgford or put them all together within fifteen minutes walking distance from Central Avenue?
But go they must because we’re not just living in a reality property programme.
Life is much bigger than this vision and we should aspire to the bigger things that can transform and regenerate and motivate everyone.
We can have small retail units and popups of all shapes and sizes. Cafe Nero could be asked (kindly) to move down to Tudor Square or Gordon Road and regenerate that space. The banks, building societies and estate agents, can all put their names onto this regeneration but back off: donate the prime location they pay for to a range of small businesses that should be our first priority.
The three labour female candidates: Nadia Whittome, Dr Lizzie Edgerton and Liz Plant.
They know West Bridgford very well.
They aren’t business people but they’re strong on the idea of social capital as an unrealised asset. They’re right about the importance of jobs, skills and training, building Extra Care Housing for elderly and frail people, putting a 20 mile per hour speed limit on schools and investment in children’s centres and youth services. These are vital things.
And to realise the finance and well being necessary to achieve these things meaningfully we need to understand that brands and corporates and banks and estate agents are just people. But people do more and achieve more when they feel that life has a purpose and meaning. We’ve become obsessed with one aspect of the economy and we need to develop so much more for so many more people.
Everyone needs to realise that it’s time for them to help to solve the problems of living, working and ageing, to give the space and time for new ideas, new businesses and new ways of thinking, living and working.
It can happen in West Bridgford that includes more people, more of the time as long as we realise that we are all interconnected: far beyond West Bridgford and we should plan a space that realises that.
signsofanopencity 
It would be great to get some really interesting ideas about how the space in the centre of West Bridgford can be integrated into a plan for economic development.
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