ECONOMIC FUTURE OF BOROUGH
“It’s giving people reason to visit, it’s giving employment to a younger generation where, frankly, people are less attracted to travelling into London every day, which everybody around here used to do.
“I think the wine industry has a huge number of benefits to the local rural community.” The draft economic strategy outlines a number of trends and factors which underpin this focus on the rural economy, from the strength of the county’s ‘Garden of England’ brand to the increasing demand for holidays here in the UK amid the uncertainty of the pandemic.
Away from the countryside, there are ambitions to, as the document’s authors put it, re-imagine Maidstone’s town centre as a destination for visitors around the clock.
Like towns across the nation, Maidstone has not been immune to the changes in behaviour which have seen many swap the high street for the convenience of online shopping, at the strategy does admit “it is unlikely that pre-pandemic patterns of activity will return in the same way” once the threat of the coronavirus ebbs away. However, as the borough’s economic hub, the vision is to revitalise the town by pro
moting an “open for business” brand which encourages more smaller firms and start-ups to locate in the area.
Recent years have seen the borough’s stock of business space gradually decline, with local office space falling by 17% between 2001 and 2019, driven recently by the trend for offices to be converted to housing under liberalised planning regulations. A decline in number of town centre office workers, a trend dramatically exacerbated by the ‘work from home’ order during Covid, has a significant knock-on effect for traders reliant on the business their footfall produces.
As well as detailing the challenged felt as a result of the pandemic downturn, the strategy also looks forward to how future growth in jobs and investment can be achieved, especially in highly-skilled and green sectors.
Medical technology and life sciences are identified as a key opportunity by maximising the positive economic impact from the Maidstone Innovation Centre currently being constructed at the site of the Kent Medical Campus. The report also identifies opportunities in the green recovery agenda, which it says aligns with wider council aims.