Local Conservatives have this week pledged their support for a bid seeking a share of £1m being made available for “Portas Pilots”, named after Queen of Shops Mary Portas, to help boost the retail offer within Coventry City Centre.
An independent partnership of organisations (Coventry Artspace, Theatre Absolute, Talking Birds and Mercurial Dance) that have pioneered creative meantime use in Coventry is submitting a Portas Pilot bid in collaboration with Coventry City Council.
The Portas Pilot proposal for Coventry outlines a model for ‘The Creative City’, a place where artists and creative people forge the essential link between residents, places and the services that support them. The group behind this bid want to trial the model with a £100k Portas Pilot grant so that it can be adapted by other places.
A formal bid needs to be submitted on 30th March 2012 and Cllrs Kevin Foster & Allan Andrews have written on behalf of Coventry Conservatives endorsing this bid.
Commenting, Cllr Allan Andrews said: “This bid is a fantastic example of how people can work together to use local expertise to support Coventry. It is clear to many residents and visitors to Coventry that the city centre needs to be transformed and needs to expand the retail offer it currently has whilst garnering our cultural talent and supporting local businesses. The Portas Pilot is a step toward achieving that goal and as such I was very pleased to back the bid.”