The second round of Portas Pilots will be announced by government tomorrow.

The new traunch of 15 towns will add to the initial 12 towns selected to trial measures put forward by retail expert Mary Portas.

Local government minister Grant Shapps revealed the move on Twitter this morning. He said: “I’ll be announcing the 2nd round of #PortasPilots tmr (Wednesday) morning, plus some other exciting #TownTeam news!”

Shapps will unveil the names of 15 towns selected to take part in the scheme.

The first round of towns selected to be Portas Pilots were revealed in May. A total of 12 town centres were chosen to test out the measures in Mary Portas’ High Street Review as they attempt to revive their high streets.

The initial towns were Bedford, Croydon, Dartford, Bedminster, Liskeard, Market Rasen, Margate, Nelson, Newbiggin by the Sea, Stockport, Stockton on Tees and Wolverhampton.

Portas put forward 28 recommendations to government in December featuring a raft of recommendations aimed at filling empty shops with start-ups and social enterprises.

In February, Portas and Shapps launched a competition to pick 12 towns to become blueprints for the recommendations outlined in her review.

 

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