AMT Public

One of the most popular tools for both one-off and holistic market town reviews is the innovative Town Benchmarking system.

Download the Town Benchmarking brochure here {opens pdf}

Town Benchmarking provides towns with a framework and methodology to collect pertinent data regarding their town centre at a minimum cost.

Twelve Key Performance Indicators are measured including:

• Variety and range of shops
• Balance of comparison and convenience retail units
• The mix of key attractor, multiple, regional and independent retailers
• Footfall
• Business confidence
• Visitors’ opinions
• The provision of adequate and convenient car parking
• Shoppers’ origin

Once collected, Town Benchmarking provides a unique analysis and picture of individual town centres. The data can be used as a one-off or longitudinally, so any changes or promotions in the town centre can be measured.

Compare your town with other towns

The real benefit of the system, however, is that the annual report generated for each town compares the data on each of the twelve KPIs against a national figure for all other Benchmarking towns, and other towns within your region and type.

This in-depth data offers market towns a tangible insight into how their town centre is performing, what is working well and what can be improved.

Allied to this, national figures can be built up year on year in terms of what is happening to our towns countrywide.

The system is proving to be a success, going from 14 market towns registered in 2006, to 75 towns in 2010 from across the East Midlands, East of England, South West, North West and West Midlands.

Applying for funding? Benchmarking could help

• your Benchmarking analysis can provide vital evidence for bids
• you can measure town improvements year on year to demonstrate progress and monitor the delivery of funding
• you can compare the performance of your town on each of the 12 KPIs against other towns of a similar type; other towns in your region; and all towns benchmarked nationally

A number of existing Benchmarking towns have successfully used the evidence to apply for external funding to improve their town centre, while with data collection reliant on local people, some localities have used the project to stimulate partnership activity.

Get involved

If you think your town or cluster of towns would benefit from this unique system, costing just £250 per licence, please contact Mike King (amt-i Senior Consultant) on 07818 068 982 or e-mail mike.king@towns.org.uk

• See our Prosperous Places campaign for more tips and advice