The Portas pilot areas are twelve English towns that have been chosen to participate in a scheme designed to help to rejuvenate their shopping areas. The towns will implement ideas put forward by retail expert and television personality Mary Portas. The government will make £1.2m available to fund the schemes.
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Background
In May 2011 it was announced that Mary Portas was going to carry out a review of many of England's high streets for the Department for Business. The objective being to propose ideas for how the decline of town centres could be halted. In December 2011 the government published Portas's report. The report recommended that town centres should be run like businesses, that many regulations should be scrapped and rules relaxed and that free car-parking should be made available to attract shoppers.
The competition had 371 bids, 13 towns have so far been selected.
The chosen towns
The towns chosen to participate in the scheme are: