The Grocer on Mary Portas', Margate and what the FOIs reveal - The high-street circus continues

Fresh in from the Grocer Magazine:

"The Mary Portas road show continues: this week the Queen of the High Street’s Channel 4 show touched down in Margate, featuring yet more cockneys, market traders and claims of TV trickery. 
After last week’s episode in the Roman Road, which was not even a Portas Pilot, at least Mary was in the right place - although the jury is well and truly out about whether her presence has had the desired impact.
Within hours of broadcast, members of the original Margate town team – who walked out in protest last year, accusing Portas of being more interested in TV than in saving their shops – had announced they would be complaining to Ofcom about the show ‘fabricating’ events.
This came hours after Portas went on Radio Five to explain how she felt she had been misadvised in her handling of the ‘Tsar’ role and had inadvertently ended up as public enemy number one. You couldn’t really make it up if you were to sit down and write a guide of how not to run a government programme to save the High Street.
The sad fact is all the good ideas Portas and her review had in 2011are in danger of being drowned out by this side show, while so little has actually been done on the ground.
In the case of Margate, a freedom of information (FOI) request seen by The Grocer shows just £2,156.21 of the £100,000 of taxpayers’ money given to the town had been spent as of the end of March.
This isn’t even the biggest tragedy. The solution to the High Street isn’t a quick fix, solved by throwing money around. It needs strategic thinking at government level, adapted by well co-ordinated local initiatives. Instead, information in FOIs seen by The Grocer is painful to behold. It reveals the incredible extent to which the government – and especially former local government minister Grant Shapps and his team – allowed its policy on the high street to be dictated by Portas and her TV crew.
In one email from Portas’ team to the minister’s cronies, the plight of Liskeard, next week’s chosen subject for the show, is highlighted. The scene, we discover, is perfect. Local councillors and residents are at each other’s throats, not least over plans for an out-of-town supermarket. “In TV terms the fight between the bureaucrats and the passionate citizens could be great,” says the email.
This is an email to the government department supposed to be helping rescue the High Street. It’s beyond belief almost that this sort of nonsense was the way the department was being run.
It gets even worse: in other correspondence between the two camps, the government team was asked to advise the Queen of Shops on a small problem. She had been contacted by the Welsh Assembly for help in tackling ailing shops. “Pls could you ask Grant for his advice on engaging or not,” says the Portas team. “We haven’t really got the time but would like your help with how to deal with this.”
The government’s advice: “It really is up to you. But if you are too busy, I would suggest you just say that Mary is very busy at the moment - and not currently engaged by Her Majesty's Government - but is keeping in touch with Department of Local Government (DCLG) officials as we implement our response to her report.” So not just one government but two have been drawn into this circus, with the DCLG acting virtually as her new political adviser to fend off the Welsh. It would all be funny – a bit like some of the scenes from the TV show – if it weren’t so tragic."
Ian Quinn

Press Release - Former Margate Town Team Members response to Mary Queen of the High Street, May 14th 2013

Press Release
Wednesday May 15th 2013

Last night's screening of Mary Portas' Mary Queen of the High Street produced by Optomen Television (May 14th 2013, Channel 4) told a story which is contradicted by the records we hold as former members of Margate Town Team.

We will be publishing full details of our concerns with the programme today and taking forward an official complaint to OFCOM. In particular, we will be making a complaint under Section 7 of the Broadcasting Code, about fairness.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/fairness/

As we were concerned prior to transmission with the direction of the programme, we have asked Optomen Television for a right of reply. This was refused on April 30th:

"we do not feel that this is required as we make no allegations or criticisms of you in the Programme."

Far from being an accurate record of events surrounding Margate Town Team, Optomen has created, and Channel4, broadcast a fabricated a storyline against early members of the Town Team which runs contrary to what actually happened.

There are several key differences between the programme that aired last night and what actually happened. We believe that the facts show that Optomen Television's behaviour was a key influence in the story playing out in the way that it did.

The Portas Pilots were meant to bring communities together. The activities of the programme makers have brought conflict to a struggling community, leaving the original bid team that secured Government funding for their town disappointed and undermined. 

Optomen Television were uninterested in filming the Town Team's many efforts to bring their winning bid to the people of Margate, yet have presented a programme that seeks to show how Margate Town Team were unwelcoming and hostile to Mary Portas and Optomen Television. Margate Town Team were not invited to meet or speak with Mary Portas before they filmed the staged conflict scene on the steps of Woolworths on June 12th.

Robin Vaughan-Lyons (Former Chairman, Margate Town Team)
Roxana Tesla (Former Vice-Chairman, Margate Town Team)
Louise Oldfield (Former Secretary & Press Officer, Margate Town Team)

Contact: 

louise.oldfield@gmail.com
07932 713292

Mary Portas show lobbied government officials

The Guardian's Randeep Ramesh has published an article showing what we in the original bid team had suspected all along; That there was a closeness between Mary Portas' TV production company and the government at the highest level. This explains so much of what has happened to me and my colleagues over the last 12 months. I need to let this sink in. But obviously when we went to the government for help in dealing with Optomen TV, well, it was a hotline to the TV company.

The PR machine for Channel 4 and Optomen TV has already started with the trailers running for the show. The series starts tomorrow with Roman Road, Margate on the 14th and Lisekard on the 21st.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/may/05/portas-show-lobbied-government-officials

TV company put forward suggestions for towns to be selected as pilots

Film-makers working with the celebrity shopping guru Mary Portas on her reality TV show lobbied government officials to direct taxpayer funds to high streets because they would be popular with television audiences, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The funding for the so-called "Portas pilots" was part of a high-profile government policy to renew town centres. Portas produced a 28-point plan on how to revive moribund town centres for David Cameron in December 2011. Less than six months later, from almost 400 entries, more than two dozen towns – the Portas pilots – were picked to receive £100,000 of state support and advice each. On Tuesday Portas fronts the first of three hour-long programmes in a series on Channel 4, Mary: Queen of the High Street, focusing on three winning bids.

The Guardian has established that the production company hired by Channel 4 and Portas's staff suggested some locations for winning bids. In one example, the production crew advocated taxpayers' cash for a deprived part of London because "social history is currently really popular on television".

The government's high-profile policy was handed to the local government minister, Grant Shapps, early last year. In February he wrote to the retail expert saying there would have to be "clear blue water between the selection of the pilots and the television show. This will be best achieved by me selecting the pilots, with [Portas's] Yellow Door and [TV production company] Optomen having no involvement."

The Portas team proposed a list of favoured choices. Government emails, released under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that on 13 April last year a Portas agency director emailed Shapps's private secretary to say: "We already have our proposed 12 [Portas pilots]." Four days later, the same director emailed David Morris, the civil servant in charge of the pilots, to say: "We have now done some early reviewing of the entries with Mary and have come to an early shortlist from our end", adding a list of 13 towns.

Morris responded 24 hours later to warn the Portas agency that "we need to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest between pilot selection and the TV show – which are separate projects". When the first list of 12 Portas pilots was announced by the government from 371 entries on May 24 last year, it included three of Yellow Door's favoured high streets: Croydon, Market Rasen and Stockport.

A spokesperson for Portas denied that Portas had sought to influence the government's selection process. Channel 4 and Optomen also strongly deny any attempt to influence the process.

One of the high streets selected for filming, Roman Road in East London, did not make the initial top dozen pilots. In an email, Optomen explained to Morris that Channel 4 "loved" the idea of renovating an East End market: "Social history is currently really popular on television and Roman Road would be the perfect road to bring back to its former glory." The second tranche of pilots offered another opportunity for it to receive funding. On May 28 London mayor Boris Johnson announced a £300,000 fund for three more pilots.

Forty-eight hours later, Optomen wrote to Morris to ask: "Do you know when Boris is planning to announce his towns and whether there will be another call for submissions? Will this be going through your office or his? Roman Rd is on top of our list and we're still hopeful that all our towns are part of the government selected towns, hence the question."

Morris replied a week later after a meeting with the Greater London Authority, who he said "are aiming to work to the same timetable as us – but they will be making the selections. I have told them you are interested in Roman Road! … Are Ch4 interested in any of the others?" There is no suggestion that the mayor was influenced by Portas or the TV project.

Two months later, the government announced that among the threesuccessful Portas pilots "selected by the mayor" and receiving "funding from the Greater London Authority" was one in Tower Hamlets that included Roman Road. The first Portas hour-long reality show centres on the renewal of the east London market. When contacted, the mayor's office said it was only "part-funding" the Tower Hamlets pilot with local council cash used to update Roman Road.There were also an impression within government that TV pilots were getting more attention than those high streets not featured by Channel 4. In early June civil servants emailed to ask if Portas' agency "could clarify … what additional support those who agree to filming will get". One government official told Yellow Door: "I am aware of two pilot areas where they have been told – one by your office and one by Optomen that they would only get Mary's time if they signed up for the TV series."

In Margate, which features in the second episode of the Channel 4 series, the original bid-winning team resigned and the town split over the pilots, with some claiming Portas had threatened to withdraw cash unless the cameras were let in. A spokesperson for Mary Portas said this was "well documented".

A month later, on the eve of the announcement of the second round of 15 Portas pilots, the celebrity told the government she would not be "personally involved" in supporting the winners – in effect withdrawing from the scheme.Half the second round pilots have yet to spend any of the £1.5m allocated to them.

Labour claims the emails show the government was more interested in "publicity than public policy". Roberta Blackman-Woods, the shadow local government minister, said: "The government promised their Portas pilots scheme would lead the way for proper regeneration on the high street. Now it appears the real intention of this competition was to mask the government's abject failure to support businesses at the heart of our communities."

A spokesperson for Mary Portas said: "Any suggestion that Mary was involved in influencing the government's selection of Portas pilot towns is categorically untrue.

"Early correspondence between Yellow Door and the government simply reflected a former employee's enthusiastic response to the hundreds of inspirational video pilot applications. The government clarified protocol and there was no influence by Yellowdoor on the selection of the Portas pilot towns whatsoever.

"Mary's work preparing the Portas review for the government, and her subsequent and ongoing advice, is unpaid. In July last year Mary let the government know that she was stepping back from personal involvement in the second round of Portas pilot towns. This in no way diminishes from her commitment to the high street campaign."

Channel 4 said: "The final decision on selecting Portas pilot towns always rested with the government and at no point did Channel 4 make any attempt to influence that decision or government policy. We strongly dispute that anything was constructed. We are aware of a number of complaints – many of which are in the public domain – and the programme fairly and accurately portrays events as they happened during filming."

A spokesperson for Optomen said: "[We] had no influence over or involvement in the selection of the Portas pilot towns, which was solely a decision for the government. The programme tells the story of what occurred when Mary went to work with three towns that applied to be Portas pilots. More of Mary's time would inevitably be spent in the towns featured in the series. No sweeteners or financial inducements were offered or made by Optomen to the towns to encourage their participation in the programme. Great care has been taken to ensure that the programme is a fair and honest representation of Mary's work in these towns."

A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: "We have always been completely clear that the 27 Portas pilots were selected for the leadership, commitment and innovation shown in their application, that Mary Portas had absolutely no role in choosing the towns, and that their status as Portas pilots was in no way dependent on their participation in any show."

No to Costa Coffee in Margate?

There was an article in last week's Thanet Gazette regarding the possibility of a Costa Coffee taking the place of the Post Office in the Edwardian building it has resided in for a century in Cecil Square. 

Brighton-based businessman Peter McDonnell, chairman of Margate FC's Ryman League rivals Whitehawk, is behind the redevelopment. His company, KSD Properties, which turned over almost £10 million last year, has planning permission for nine flats above the office.

The fact this grand listed building recently was sold by the Council at auction for just £361,000 is bad enough. Losing the central Post Office from this location is also of grave concern. But that corporate coffee giant, Costa Coffee could be the future occupant has so far on social media, not been a welcome suggestion.

I covered Thanet Council's ill judged planning application to convert to flats and build a house overlooking the mosque  on this blog back in March last year.

Margate's shopping areas are struggling to survive. Its independent shops, cafe and bars are our crucial to the local economy. I don't need to quote the well known stats about how vastly greater amounts of the money spent in local independents stays within the local economy as opposed to disappearing out to distant corporate shareholders. Or that Margate is home to a growing number of high quality coffee shops that pay a decent wage, pay their taxes and who buy ethically sourced coffee and local produce?

Margate fan, Mary Portas herself said she was pleased to hear that Costa had listened to the good people of Totnes with their No to Costa campaign and backed off from opening an outlet there. And we know Mary strongly believes in local independent shops. 

I do hope that we don't have to start a No to Costa in Margate campaign to go with the No Tesco in Arlington, No Tesco at Westgate...

The new owner of the Post Office building at Cecil Square bagsied himself a bargain. Hopefully we won't see anything open that will cost the community further.

Perhaps we can get Chas'n'Dave to do a:

'Down to Margate, you can keep the Costa Coffee, I’m telling ya mate I’d rather have a day down Margate with all me family'

Sunday Times: Queen of Shops ‘all pomp and flop’

 

Georgia Graham Published 3 March 2013 

IN ITS heyday in the mid- 1800s, Margate would lure crowds of Victorians to stroll its shop-lined streets and bathe in the waters off the Kent coastal town.

Today, Margate's efforts to regenerate its now depressed high street with a £100,000 government grant and the help of Mary Portas, the self-styled Queen of Shops, have descended into a bitter war of words. 

In May last year Margate beat off stiff competition to become one of 12 towns to win part of £1.1m, the first wave of funding set aside by the government to help ailing high streets. It was much needed. The high street, littered with empty shops, had a 36.1% vacancy rate and even the Non-Stop Pound Shop store had moved out. 

The involvement of Portas, the initiative's figurehead, was an added boost, as was the arrival of a television crew to film her offering advice to grateful shop owners. 

However, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, just £111.47 of the £100,000 had been spent by December 2012 — on a combination of stationery and Land Registry searches. The quartet who led the original Town Team grant application have resigned, condemning what they describe as Portas's "gimmicks" and "silly pomp and ceremony" for leaving the high street in a worse state than when she arrived six months ago. Portas has dismissed the claims as "ridiculous". 

Among the disgruntled locals is Robin Vaughan-Lyons, the leader of the original bid, who was last week preparing to close one of his charity shops in the high street. 

"It has all been a huge waste of time," he said. "It is all gimmicks and no substance, there is nothing real that has been done, not for local people who want to shop in their local shops." 

Vaughan-Lyons claims Portas focused her energies on Margate's old town and seafront which have been far less ravaged by years of decline than the high street. He also believes her appearance at an empty branch of the now defunct Woolworths owed much to securing footage for her TV series. 

Other traders, such as Terry Silk, the owner of Yama's restaurant, are unimpressed by the notion advocated by Portas that initiatives such as art displays in abandoned shop fronts will arrest the decline. 

"Honestly, nothing has changed, nothing at all. What we have been hoping for is to get proper lighting on the street, and that's still not done, we wanted the shops painted, everything cleaned up, the litter," he said. "To be honest business is worse than ever." 

 

Margate shop owner Robin Vaughan-Lyons, with Roxanne Tesla (Julian Andrews)  

Another shopkeeper, who asked not to be named, described the rancour between Portas's critics and supporters as like "world war three". She added: "It's ridiculous — all that pomp and ceremony of the launch — and nothing actually changing." 

Those criticisms are dismissed by the council and the new Town Team who say half a dozen projects — ranging from community dance studios to steak houses — are planned for this spring. 

Richard Ash, who took over as chairman of the new Town Team in October, defended the decision to spend so little of the £100,000 fund and insisted that Portas's involvement had benefited the town. 

"Our position is to target where the money will be spent in a proper manner rather than rushing. I'm as proud as a peacock we haven't spent our money because it means we have it to use it where we want to use it," he said. "She [Portas] hasn't done it 100% right, I agree, but she has tried to promote Margate and has brought a lot of publicity." 

Margate is not alone in demonstrating a reluctance to spend its regeneration grant. According to freedom of information responses revealed by Paul Turner-Mitchell, a retail expert, from the 12 towns who secured funds, just £161,773 — or 14.5% — of the £1.11m handed out has been spent. Margate is the lowest (0.1%) but Bedford (4.6%) and Croydon (4.9%) have also spent less than 5%.

The crisis in the high street shows no sign of abating. According to a study of 500 UK town centres by the Local Data Company, there were 7,337 store closures in 2012 against 5,558 openings. 

 

Portas is unbowed by the criticism and insists part of her programme was filmed in Margate's old town to show what the high street could become. 

She said: "This is not a make-over, this is going to take years to change. To be judged after a month's work advising a community is just quite ridiculous. This is not about TV programming, this is about documenting something that is real and to suggest that this is all PR spin is just wrong. 

"There are people who comment, there are people who point and there are people who roll their sleeves up. In rolling my sleeves up, I come [in] for a knocking and I just have to take it but I can sleep at night. I am doing what I believe in."