Canterbury’s Tales of England

Canterbury’s heritage assets and the stories that connect them are vastly undervalued - the story of one of the country’s most exciting heritage cities lies untold. The potential for a heritage led regeneration of the city is immense - helping it to meet the challenges and opportunities of the decades ahead, and acting as a catalyst for the district and wider county of Kent.

HERITAGE & CULTURAL LED REGENERATION

Canterbury is the jewel in Kent’s multi-faceted crown - it’s the principal county destination for education, city centre retail, business, entertainment and visitors for culture and heritage.

Historically, town centres and high streets were places where communities did not just shop, but worked, learned, and gathered socially. They supported a diverse range of uses and are very well positioned to do the same in future if investments are made in restoration and reuse. On average, for every £1 of public sector investment in heritage-led regeneration, £1.60 in additional economic activity is generated over a ten-year period.

Heritage and culture will be the twin drivers of the city's transformation - Canterbury's restored historic buildings, routes and infrastructure, will provide a compelling backdrop to a nationally-important, coordinated and changing seasonal cultural offer - unique to the city - which will encourage local, regional, national and international visits and re-visits.

challenges

In the last couple of decades, there has been substantial nationwide investment in cultural venues and experiences. In particular, large metropolitan cities have used cultural tourism as catalysts for regeneration. Since 1994, National Lottery Funding has awarded over £7.9bn for upgrading over 43,000 heritage buildings, museums and parks, as well as funding new attractions by the private and public sector.

This unprecedented investment has created alternative competition for established historic cities such as Canterbury. As a visitor destination, Canterbury is underperforming and needs help to level up. In the public imagination, Canterbury belongs to a prestigious, globally renowned group of historic destinations that showcase the UK’s rich culture and heritage to millions of visitors each year. Many are international visitors, emphasising the city’s important contribution to UK plc.

Despite its iconic place in the history of England, the unfortunate reality is that Canterbury lags behind its peers by failing to offer a diverse and attractive experience. This is impeding the city’s ability to recover fully from the pandemic. Evidence shows:

  • Canterbury was losing international tourists and struggling to retain staying visitors even before visitor numbers collapsed through the pandemic.

  • The city has often relied on visitor trips linked to Canterbury Cathedral. However, the cathedral itself has seen falling visitor numbers.

  • Despite a rich mix of heritage and cultural assets, the city’s visitor offer is limited and underdeveloped - further weakened by the recent loss of city centre attractions.

The city’s retail and visitor economy has also been scarred by the pandemic and needs help to renew, re-energise and recover. Its retail and hospitality sector can bounce back, but more investment is needed to create the business environment they need to drive a post-pandemic recovery.

The quality of key parts of the public realm and pedestrian environment have also deteriorated or are underused; this has constrained growth and damaged civic pride. New investment is urgently needed to transform the appeal of the city centre to residents and visitors, and to restore our bruised civic pride.

OUR CURRENT OFFER

The 2017 Canterbury Heritage Connects Scoping Exercise concluded that ‘Currently, there are insufficient must sees besides the Cathedral, and a perception that you can do Canterbury in a day’. Since the report in 2017, Canterbury’s offer, instead of improving to counter this decline, has degraded further with the closure of the Canterbury Tales visitor attraction, Canterbury Heritage Museum, Canterbury Castle and the Sidney Copper Gallery.

The list of main visitor attractions is now limited to Canterbury Cathedral, The Beaney House of Art & Knowledge, Canterbury Roman Museum, Westgate Towers Museum & Viewpoint, St Augustine’s Abbey, Franciscan Gardens, Eastbridge Hospital, three river experiences (Canterbury Historic River Tours, Westgate Punts and Canterbury Punting Company), and Kent Museum of Freemasonry.

There are some positive improvements on the horizon in terms of the retail and leisure offer, the completion of The Riverside development, and the transformation of two of the city’s former department stores (Debenhams and Nasons - currently held up by the issues at the Stodmarsh Nature Reserve) which will provide a much needed revitalisation of key brownfield sites.

The Governments Levelling Up Fund now provides an opportunity to kickstart the Canterbury’s Tales of England Masterplan to deliver transformation and regeneration to ensure our principal sectors are supported.

REPORT FINDINGS

The 2017 Canterbury Heritage Connects Scoping Exercise is the most recent evaluation of the city’s visitor experience and included detailed stakeholder consultation. Some key findings of the report include:

1 FORM OF THE CITY

Whilst the city’s heritage and built form provide a distinct sense of place and character, there are also very few opportunities to build new attractions, particularly new larger hotels to increase overnight stays, particularly for groups. The city wall and gyratory road system cut St. Augustine’s Abbey and other heritage assets off from the heart of the city and similarly, the Cathedral enclosed by precinct walls, is disconnected from its context.

2 PERCEPTION

The perception of insufficient ‘must sees’ and that you can ‘do Canterbury in a day’ is due to an over reliance on the Cathedral and the sheer abundance of heritage assets that are integrated into the fabric and everyday life of the city - these assets provide the heritage setting, but don’t work together to communicate Canterbury’s or England’s story.

3 VISITORS

Canterbury has high volumes of day visitors, but spend per head is relatively low in comparison to Bath, Brighton, Cambridge and Norwich, all of which are university cities and where used as benchmarks. This may be due to the short length of the trip (many visits are limited to 4 hours), low overnight stays (8%), and the high volume of school trips and coach parties - which both have relatively low per-head spend in the city.

The city must provide compelling reasons for visitors from London and the home counties to extend their visits and for visitors from further afield to want to come to Canterbury over other well known and long established destinations, such as Bath, York or Stratford, which are easier to get to for those living in Scotland, Wales, the North of England, Midlands and South West.

4 SHARED STORY

The most successful places have a simple Shared Story to tell. It is a commonly agreed way of describing the place, that everyone uses when they are planning how to invest in improvements and new experiences, and when they are talking to people who don’t know the place.

5 Stakeholder engagement findings

  • The conversations centred around the gradual decline in the Cathedral’s popularity as a visitor destination due to increased competition from other metropolitan cities, and how Canterbury, by partnering with key local heritage players, needs to create a common vision and cohesive plan to ensure the city strengthens its position in order to become a premier UK destination.

  • Interviewees identified that there are currently no formal or informal partnerships in place to collectively plan the strategic direction of the city’s heritage.

  • There was common agreement that the lack of strategic direction and support for heritage had adversely impacted the visitor experience and that the lack of a cohesive plan is inhibiting the future economic growth of the sector.

  • There is a lack of a shared common narrative of the city’s key heritage assets and no strategic plan in place for linking them together. Interviewees consistently shared the view that connectivity is fragmented, disparate and unplanned.

  • Visitor orientation, virtual (digital) and physical (visitor centres and promotional material), were consistently raised as integral to ensuring a better visitor experience. Conversations also highlighted the need for visitor orientation to be developed strategically
    and concurrently with an improved signage, wayfinding and interpretation strategy.

  • Comments were made about the need for the development of technology to tell the story digitally, particularly through the development of apps and interpretation that focus on exploring the hidden assets of the city, such as its open spaces, hidden gardens, churches, buildings, stories and literary connections.

  • A recurrent theme emerging from conversations was the need for strong leadership to champion the city’s heritage agenda and bring about substantive change.

  • Several comments focused on improving the quality of the visitor experience by concentrating on just a core number of heritage themes and attractions, but delivering them to a high standard.

  • It is widely recognised that the city’s heritage has been neglected and is not being capitalised on. There is a lack of a shared common narrative of the city’s key heritage assets and no partnerships or strategic plan in place for securing funding and linking them together.

  • There is support for a major regeneration project with the potential to rationalise the heritage offer. This could be achieved by potentially disposing of underperforming assets, creating combined exhibitions and by investing in a reduced number of quality attractions.

REPORT CONCLUSIONS

Although the report dates from 2017, its findings are even more urgent with the further deterioration of the visitor offer and the national shift in the high street gathering pace due to the impact of the pandemic:

  • Canterbury is first and foremost a historic city; visitors come to see its heritage and enjoy spending time in its historic setting. Ironically, the city is not currently playing to its strengths and capitalising on its unique position.

  • Whilst the majority of visitors come to Canterbury for its heritage, besides Canterbury Cathedral, there aren’t currently enough high quality heritage attractions to encourage overnight stays. The quality of the public realm is also not commensurate with its status as a World Heritage Site.

  • The Story of Canterbury is also the Story of England - if the city was marketed and geared to reflect this it would have far greater and wider appeal.

  • Canterbury is standing at the threshold of real opportunity and must change in order to recapture its position as one of the UK’s premier heritage destinations. The Canterbury Heritage Connect project (now Canterbury’s Tales of England) provides a chance to develop a coherent long-term vision and delivery plan for the city’s revitalisation.

  • The vision must be to transform Canterbury’s public realm and heritage to a standard that reflects its status as an international visitor destination and World Heritage Site, based on the city’s Shared Story and narrative as ‘The Home of England’s Story’ in order to transform the economic, social and cultural wellbeing of Canterbury’s communities, businesses and institutions.

  • This will require: major investment in its heritage attractions and public realm to create a high quality heritage setting and improve access and connections across the city; alongside the development of a commercial operation that delivers an exemplary visitor experience, through clear and welcoming orientation centres and immersive scene setting, supported by a digitally enhanced physical exploration of the city and its heritage locations.

The City Wall - An example of a heritage asset that doesn’t contribute to the visitor experience

Canterbury Castle Keep - Currently inaccessible to visitors

Westgate Square - Damaging the setting of England’s largest surviving medieval gateway

BACKGROUND

Canterbury’s Tales of England came from a local desire to reinvent and celebrate Canterbury’s currently undervalued, untold, and inconsistent heritage story. Stephen Allen (One Pound Lane) & Bob Jones (former CEO of Canterbury BID) began to explore the concept back in 2016 with a project titled ‘The Pilgrims Mile’ which led to the 2017 Canterbury Heritage Connects Scoping Exercise which identified the many gaps in Canterbury’s offer, many of which have been known for some time.

Since then a dedicated group of people have helped push the project forward, creating the Masterplan Vision. A huge amount of work and investment is being undertaken by the City Council, major heritage and cultural organisations, champions of Canterbury’s heritage and commercial operators which make it an exciting time for the city. Many decades of passion by dedicated champions of Canterbury’s heritage have contributed to this momentum.

With the full backing of the Leadership, the dedicated team at the City Council and partners across the city, now seems to be the perfect opportunity to use this momentum to reinvent Canterbury’s heritage, cultural and commercial offer with Canterbury’s Tales of England, bringing together the city’s projects and heritage champions, to give us one strong brand and shared story for the benefit of all - at a time when it’s needed most. As Kent’s principal city for tourism, retail and education, Canterbury has a responsibility and opportunity to act as a catalyst for the district.

Delivering Canterbury’s Tales of England would bring to life many of the objectives of the city’s current strategies and help to secure Canterbury the future that it deserves. A comprehensive and appealing offer that is anchored in a place’s heritage and culture can undoubtedly be one of the most influential aspects in our prosperity and wellbeing.

CREDITS

Masterplan Website - Stephen Allen
Concept Sketch Architect - Hollaway Studio
Images - Canterbury BID / Visit Canterbury / Stephen Allen