Farron hails success of Kendal's 'Town Team'

South Lakes MP Tim Farron has welcomes news that Kendal Futures has successfully applied to become a Town Team Partner, a scheme set up as part of the Portas Review into High Streets.

Successful Town Team Partners will be able to access the support package the Association of Town Centre Management has prepared for Town Team Partners. The support package aims to promote shared learning and best practice with the help of retail experts and other town teams from across the country. In addition each Town Team Partner will be receiving £10,000 to help towards putting some of their plans into action.

As part of their bid to the Department of Communities and Local Government, Kendal Futures promised to explore the potential for a drop-in workspace/hub to encourage self-employed or small home based companies to access a share workspace. The 'hub' would have superfast broadband and wifi, networking opportunities and access to business mentoring support.

The project is aimed at creating a new type of business community within the town centre and eventually, this could lead to the creation of a digital and creative centre/hub in the town centre, to support Kendal's many creative/digital enterprises and support the development of new businesses. It also hopes to ensure a boost to retail sales and sustainability by attracting more people, more regularly to the high street.

Commenting this morning Tim said: "For so long Kendal has been the hub of the South Lakes, but we wanted to give it a boost to make sure that we retain and create more and more well paid jobs. The project put forward by Kendal Futures is a fantastic plan to breathe new life into the high street and to help give a boost to the local economy, by encouraging small businesses to work together and by bringing more visitors to the town.

"I am delighted that the Government has seen the potential of this project and is willing to get behind it and I look forward to seeing the 'hub' put Kendal in an even stronger position on the business map over the coming months."