Rural communities are facing challenges from many directions and the government is looking to entrepreneurs to unlock their potential through innovative businesses and creative approaches.
This project worked with entrepreneurs to understand their feelings towards their towns and transport system and provides insights and tools that help others engage with a range of issues, from inclusive wellbeing to environmental restoration.
It builds on prior work, Our Future Towns, and uses theories of system change to connect with entrepreneurs’ hearts and minds as we design our future towns together.
It was funded through’s NICRE’s Research and Innovation Fund.
For more information email imdc@rca.ac.uk
We worked with NICRE, and other partners, and included 14 different organisations from around the Tyne Valley in online surveys and workshops in 2021. They included for-profit and social enterprises involved in manufacturing, hospitality, tourism, retail and food and had expertise in marketing, infrastructure development and partnership building amongst other skills.
Participants shared common values including a sense of community, helping others and kindness; and valued hard work, passion and a drive to succeed. They saw value in their historic market towns and nature as well as the creativity needed to help them to thrive, but they also saw barriers including the challenge of collaborating with councils and accessing funding.
They saw positives during the pandemic, from communities helping each other to the benefits of digital inclusion and found themselves smiling when they were able to get around by bike or walk by the Tyne.
But they were also frustrated by the way shared spaces were abandoned, the perceived failure of government and the isolation that many people felt.
Their vision for the future centred on helping independent businesses and town councils work together to support thriving town centres that are self-sustaining and inclusive, with space and time for everyone.
Dan Phillips is a designer and engineer with 30 years’ experience in the development of innovative environments, products and services.
Dan studied at Imperial College and the University of Cambridge and is a senior research fellow and studio leader at the Intelligent Mobility Design Centre (IMDC) at the Royal College of Art and a design strategist at Design Science Ltd. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and has been a member of a number of institutional advisory groups on cities, sustainability and the built environment.
Formerly a Research Assistant at NICRE, working to support the Newcastle University portfolio of innovation and research projects, I am now an Associate Fellow, having joined the Scottish Government as a Senior Social Researcher with the Office of the Chief Economic Advisor (energy and heat analysis) in autumn 2022.
Prior to these posts, I completed a PhD in Sociology and Social Policy at Newcastle, researching agriculture policy, land use and waterway management in Ireland and Northern Ireland. I have previously conducted research on topics related to public health and nutrition, sustainable agriculture and agriculture policy, all areas in which I retain a keen interest. I am also very interested in multi-disciplinary research and have worked collaboratively with qualitative and quantitative researchers, policy makers and third sectors organisations, both academically and professionally.
Before returning to academia, I was Chief Executive of Cultivate London, a London-based horticultural social enterprise.
Rural entrepreneurs want to see more collaboration and less competition, especially between different levels of government. They need more joined-up funding and investment to build community enterprises that help everyone succeed. In terms of transport, they wanted to see integrated public transport but recognised that this needs political will.
We developed a set of tools and approaches that might help others engage in their towns' future.
While the potential is huge, there are also a number of challenges: from the need to create a patchwork vision based on multiple perspectives, not simply on entrepreneurial activity, collaboration between towns and between business sectors, the removal of community-oriented barriers that come from poorly thought-out support, planning and regulation and the need to build a diverse team to bring a community vision to life.
We see an opportunity for more radical change, but it will only happen through joined-up and creative thinking. Every town has the potential to rebuild its centres for communities to come together, to develop local transport hubs that point to a less car-dominated future, and reconfigure shared assets so they can grow new connections and businesses that are fit for the twenty-first century.
Dan Phillips is a designer and engineer with 30 years’ experience in the development of innovative environments, products and services.
Dan studied at Imperial College and the University of Cambridge and is a senior research fellow and studio leader at the Intelligent Mobility Design Centre (IMDC) at the Royal College of Art and a design strategist at Design Science Ltd. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and has been a member of a number of institutional advisory groups on cities, sustainability and the built environment.
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