“I can’t just wave my magic wand. This is reality,” said Mary Portas as she introduced her new Channel 4 series Mary Queen of the High Street this week. But was it?
Commentators have blasted the programme, which kicked off with Portas’s efforts to breathe life into an East End market, for taking place at a location that was not one of her Portas Pilots.
Portas, brought in as the high street tsar in 2011 by David Cameron, sparked a nationwide battle for funding from the government to trial new ideas for regeneration, with towns given as much as £100,000 each.
Channel 4 introduced the show with: “There are now 400 towns and Town Teams across the country putting Mary’s ideas into practice. This three-part series tells the story of three of them.”
However, Roman Road failed in its bid to win funding as a Portas Pilot, leaving some sources involved in the high street rescue wondering whether it was chosen because of the appeal for TV of an East End location, with its Olympics backdrop.
“Why this show focused on Roman Road, heaven only knows. Mary Portas hasn’t even been asked to look at that area.”
“Why this show focused on Roman Road, heaven only knows,” said one source. “Mary Portas hasn’t even been asked to look at that area.”
Portas and her team were seen campaigning for the local council to allow food traders to move in and help revamp the local market.
The programme briefly mentioned that the town had lost out on funding, but BRC director general Helen Dickinson said it had been “selective” in its portrayal of the problems facing businesses.
“The plan seemed to be all about how the traders could bring more customers in, with no reference to issues like government-imposed costs,” she said.
Next week, the show will feature the work of an official Portas pilot in Margate, Kent, where town team leaders walked out last year, accusing Portas of being more interested in entertaining viewers than fixing the high street.
Analysis: Sir Terry’s new plan to save ‘medieval’ high streets
No comments yet