King's Lynn: Can £25m revive the town's High Street?

King's Lynn has been awarded £25m from the government's Towns Fund

King's Lynn was once one of England's most important ports, with its market square considered to be one of the grandest in the country. But like many places, the Norfolk town has been hit hard by the pandemic and the decline of the High Street. However, it is about to get £25m from the government's Towns Fund. What difference will it make?

'We need to enhance what we've got'

Michael Baldwin believes the £25m will help attract people and businesses to the town

Michael Baldwin is on a board which successfully bid for the government funding. He believes the money "will actually do some real good for King's Lynn and help bring it up to a new level".

St George's Guildhall, the oldest working theatre in the UK, will receive £5m and he says it really needs the investment.

He says the funding will bring a new aspiration to people in the town.

"They can see we're going to spend lots of money on the High Street and this project.

"It will bring new work, it will bring new housing and it will just help lift everything in the area which is quite underprivileged."

St George's Guildhall will receive £5m for renovations

He says the town has more Grade II listed buildings per capita than York.

"We've already got the basics, we just need to now enhance what we've got and just bring it more into the 21st Century for future generations," he says.

'Town centre retail has had its day'

Shop owner Jenny Richards says anything that increases footfall into the town is good

Jenny Richards has owned Pronta Print, a business on the High Street, for 15 years and says the money is "absolutely fabulous news for the town".

She hopes it will create some new jobs and regenerate the area.

"The High Street is so underdeveloped now, there so many empty units," she says.

The downturn in town centre retail has been exacerbated by the pandemic

Ms Richards says the town centre needs a "change of usage".

"Hopefully it's going to mean it's more of a night time activity town. Retail has had its day a little bit, so to be able to refocus and renew the town centre to living and working is much needed.

She says it is a situation other places will also find themselves in.

"Town centres are going be green areas, community areas and residential areas - it's just how times change."

'Horrible to see so many empty shops'

Amanda Arterton says she has had interest from people wanting to take over her shop unit when she closes

Amanda Arterton is closing her furniture store after 30 years as she and her husband are set to retire.

She says Debenhams, which collapsed earlier this year, was a great loss for the town.

Mrs Arterton says the empty unit, and others like it, should be given over to self-employed people, with cheaper rents.

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"It's horrible to see so many empty shops but everyone's towns are the same," she says.

But she is positive about the investment in the town and "delighted for our theatre which is going to be renovated".

'I didn't expect King's Lynn to get investment'

Tamara Proctor says the town has a lot of history but not enough people know about it

Tamara Proctor was made redundant from a shoe shop at the start of the pandemic but says there were issues with the town centre earlier than the first lockdown.

"Before the pandemic it was going quite badly anyway, a lot of the stores had started to close, and we had started referring to it as a ghost town.

"Then the pandemic came along and made it even worse."

She says there should be more to bring people into the town centre and get some "human contact" rather than doing everything online.

When Debenhams collapsed it left many empty units in towns like King's Lynn

Ms Proctor, who is now a community carer, says the town centre should be "somewhere you can go to chill out your friends and catch up with them [with] places that bring people together other than just shops, places like the theatre, cafes and restaurants".

She describes the £25m awarded to the town as "absolutely crazy for all the right reasons".

"We don't notice a lot of the history, there is a lot, a lot of us don't see what a great place Kings Lynn is because its 'just our home town'.

"I don't think anyone who lives or who has been brought up here would expect King's Lynn to have that sort of investment in it, so I think it's going to make a lot of improvements," she says.