A £2.6 million government fund to help revitalise high streets hit by the recession has been given a cautious welcome by Action for Market Towns.

The cash is the second stage of the ‘Real Help Now’ initiative to help town centres remain vibrant places by giving many of the hardest hit areas support to reopen or re-use empty shops.

Unlike the first allocation of funds in August, which mostly went to large cities, 30 per cent of this new fund will go to rural local authorities. But AMT Chief Executive Chris Wade cautioned that smaller towns would have to make their voices heard within their local authorities to make sure they are allocated some of the funds.

Fifty local authorities have each been given £52,632 to spend on town centre improvement ideas – and Action for Market Towns is ready with support and services to help towns make the most effective use of the cash.

The Prosperous Places Campaign section of the AMT website contains a wealth of information to inspire and give practical help to towns, including the policy background, case studies of successful projects and pointers to where to get advice and support.

Action for Market Towns has also published a draft policy position statement on Prosperous Places and is looking for feedback from members before it is finalised. Click here to download the draft statement.

Through amt-i, Action for Market Town’s research and consultancy organisation, a range of town centre services is available, including small business training, loyalty schemes, car parking studies, signage audits, visitor surveys and support for the innovative town benchmarking programme to measure the performance of town centres. For more information on all the amt-i tools designed to help town centres please click here.

To see if your local authority is one of the 50 to benefit from the government fund, click here.

Click here to view the government announcement.