Renaissance is about creating places where people want to live, work and invest. It is about seizing opportunities within our towns and cities to make them better, to address what is broken and to build on what is already there. It represents a new approach to regeneration based on ‘quality of place’ and an understanding that the content and process involved in the design and delivery of high quality public space and the built environment will raise aspirations, create and sustain great places and contribute to higher levels of economic wellbeing.

Whilst the physical remaking of our towns and cities is often the most prominent it is only part of a process that places people and partners at it’s core and that ensures that once a Renaissance has been achieved it can be sustained.

The process is split into three phases:

1. Rethinking – working with people and partners to ‘imagine’ what might be.
2. Remaking – moulding and shaping ideas into delivering real projects.
3. Regaining – holding and sustaining the Renaissance – physical and beyond.

Yorkshire Forwards role within Renaissance is one around enabling others to achieve the Renaissance of their own town and cities. The Strategic Development Framework, (SDF), for each town is the document that is owned and shared by all those involved in the process and it is this that drives each Renaissance. The role of the partners engaged within Renaissance is to champion, pursue and deliver each of the SDF’s.

The Renaissance process has been undertaken in many of the towns and cities across the Region. The different content of the programmes demonstrates the different deficits, opportunities and aspirations within our towns and cities. They should not and will not all be the same, they will celebrate their difference and they will culminate in great places.

The profiles for each of our Renaissance towns provide the clearest insight into what Renaissance is.