ABSTRACT
Cheltenham, situated on the boundaries of the West Midlands and South-West England, yet only ninety minutes by road from London, has been subject to considerable economic transformations in recent decades. But the most powerful policy impacts relate to its built environment and the continuing strengths of its more conservative traditions. The local state’s manipulation of the built environment has been particularly significant. Its reshaping of the prestige social imagery of the leisured Victorian town centre has been central to the area’s economic restructuring. This has added to the historical accumulated layers of investment and an educated labour force within a ‘Thatcherite’ restructuring of the UK economy, characterized by dis-investment in the traditional industrial conurbations. Cheltenham provides a classic example of place marketing in the 1980s, where the capitalization of heritage locally has coincided with an era of national heritage building policies and a museum culture that has exalted the value of age. This coincidence has been fortuitously bolstered by an added symmetry between Cheltenham’s traditional military defence strategic and manufacturing base and the Conservative Government’s ‘defence of the realm’ policies.
