Petra

Projects: Town Centre Management

Since my two years on the ngdp, I’ve spent two years in my current position as Catford Town Centre Manager. This job’s very challenging and I’m picking up skills across a wide range of disciplines. I get to see the everyday difference it makes to the area, and get to work at a strategic level to make a difference to how services are delivered. The job is a level higher than it would have been had I not progressed through the ngdp.

The ngdp provided me with the skills to perform to deadlines, manage competing priorities and the expectations of senior managers, and to work on my own initiative. Whilst the transition to a ‘real life’ job of work was noticeable, with a much a higher level work and lower levels of support, the step up was a natural progression, and the ngdp really prepared me well for this.

Some projects stick out in my mind. For instance, I co-ordinated a consultation event in a vacant disused shopping centre unit to gather views from shoppers, residents, businesses and other hard to reach groups on the future of the town centre.

It was a good example of joined-up working between the planning department (working on Local Development Framework), the Local Strategic Partnership Team (working on the Sustainable Community Strategy) and other Council departments – historically parts of the Council that have not worked together or consulted in an innovative way.

The hardest challenge in my role is to engage businesses more in the running of the town centre. This calls for a deep understanding of how they work – a frontline element that sets me apart slightly from my ngdp peers who are mostly in policy/strategy roles. I think I’m lucky to have a high profile service role that combines policy and strategic thinking with the successful front-end delivery that comes from patience, diplomacy and honesty when working with key stakeholders.