How to Give Your Town a Beauty Makeover!
Although councils and businesses have a role to play, local people can do a lot to transform their town or village into a community paradise.
Giving your town or village a beauty makeover not only makes it a nicer place to live and work, but encourages (the right kind of) tourists, and also helps to do everything from improve mental health to reduce crime (which tends to reduce, in areas full of community spirit).
Often councils may mean well, but have not read the right kind of town planning books to know that it’s more lack of vision than lack of money, which is why towns are often ugly. But they can easily be transformed, quickly, with little legal hoops.
Read more on no-dig gardening and humane slug/snail deterrents. If you live with animal friends, read up on pet-friendly gardens (some recommended flowers and fruit trees are not safe). Also avoid netting to protect food (just leave some for wildlife!)
Avoid facing indoor plants to outside gardens, to help stop birds flying into windows.
Conduct a Community Survey
The best way to start, is to gather feedback from residents. This lets people voice their opinions. Ask them about their town. Create a simple questionnaire (both online and on paper) to reach everyone locally.
Do they want more walkable places, and more parks? Are they concerned about litter or chain stores destroying local independent shops? Do they want more places for older people and young parents to gather? Are there eyesore buildings that need addressing?
Create a Vision – and a Plan!
Once you know want needs to be done, make a big plan with lots of to-do points to check off. You can do of these alone, some with volunteers, some with skilled volunteers (say giving local animal shelters and homeless shelters a makeover to improve the lives of those within them).
Other solutions may need help from businesses and councils. All are sure to get on board, for the end result benefits.
Be sure to make this inclusive. For instance, if local people want a quiet park over noisy skateboard parks, don’t just ignore the fact that local teenagers may want the opposite. Either place a skateboard park in another area.
Or better yet – ask locals what they would wish for. Perhaps they don’t want a skateboard park – maybe they would prefer a local community centre with free facilities? Listen to everyone, and changes will be quicker and more lasting.
Identifying Key Areas for Improvement
Get out and walk around. Notice cracked pavements, rundown shopfronts, or forgotten corners. Take photos or jot down what stands out, good or bad. Work with the local council to mark public spaces that need extra care.
- Shortlist target spots: Parks, playgrounds, high street areas, bus stops, and public squares.
- Check amenities: Broken benches, faded signs, patchy grass, or overflowing bins.
- Think accessibility: Steep kerbs or blocked footpaths tell you where upgrades are needed.
Revitalising Streets and Signage
Tackle worn-out details for instant impact.
- Repaint street lamps, benches, and railings.
- Replace dated or damaged signs, with modern ones.
- Fix broken paving and tidy up shopfronts, with planters and new paint.
Improving Accessibility and Safety
A beautiful town also needs to be safe and easy for everyone to use.
- Add ramps, tactile crossings, and dropped kerbs for pushchairs and wheelchairs.
- Brighten dark pathways, with good wildlife-friendly lighting (avoid light pollution).
- Trim hedges, and remove trip hazards on busy walkways.
Makeover Your Town in 7 Weeks!
David Engwicht (a former window washer and son of a gospel singer) is known worldwide for his inspiring ideas to re-imagine towns and reduce traffic (he helped to create the ‘walking shool bus’, and now has created a new website with a book to help makeover your town in 7 weeks. The book has 140 diagrams and 36 steps to work through, most are free or low-cost.
Creative Communities also offers a program where you download materials and support to makeover your community in just one week. You can also download a free sponsor’s guide to help you find funding for materials. Join up and ‘launch your town’ in just 12 weeks from visiting the website, to when you cut the ribbon!
This will benefit not just local people, but also pets (more walkable communities and parks) and native birds and wildlife. And also help to support local independent shops, as people tend to get behind local people, when they take pride in a community (it’s called ‘placemaking’).
Making over your town or village also will make the place more pleasant to visit, so will help to bring in extra income from tourism. The process involves:
- Deciding an action plan (and seeking funding)
- Creating an information meeting (in a local community centre)
- Recruiting volunteers and experts
- Having media interviews
- Creating a safety plan (sharps boxes, safety vests etc)
- Getting to work!
- Balancing the books
- Launch party!
There was a time when people could build a building wherever they liked, which resulted in classic French villages and Italian hill towns, whose streets have an organic feel. Now we rely on one or two planners.
Cities define residents as ‘customers’ so the resident says ‘You provide the roads, remove the rubbish and fix the conflicts I have with my neighbours. I pay the money, you give me the product’.
At the same time, residents are saying ‘I no longer belong to a vibrant community, I no longer have a connection to my neighbours’. Cities need to hand back that responsibility to residents. David Engwicht
One fan of this inspiring man is US organisation Project for Public Spaces, where you can find lots more help and ideas.
Get the Council Involved
Things like wildlife-friendly lighting and providing sharps boxes and hi-vis jackets for litter clean-ups, will need council involvement. So will improving public transport, like offering community buses or designing more walking/cycling paths.
Send them copies of your detailed plan to makeover your town. Most councillors are interested in helping communities (that’s why they do what they do). So will love to get on board, to help out.
Start with a quick town beauty check
Before anyone buys paint or plants, take a breath and look properly. Most towns don’t need “everything”. They need a handful of fixes in the places people actually see and use.
Start by gathering input in the simplest way possible. A clipboard at the market works. So does a short post on a local Facebook group. Keep the question tight: Which three spots make the town look scruffy or feel unsafe? Ask for locations, not opinions.
Next, pick a small area to focus on first. Think of it like cleaning one room, not the whole house. A high street entrance, a route from the station, the outside of the library, or the square near the bus stops are strong choices. These are the places that shape first impressions.
Permissions matter, too. A makeover that gets removed a week later drains morale. Spend a little time finding who owns what. Pavements often sit with highways, planters might need council approval, and shopfronts belong to landlords as much as tenants. When in doubt, ask early and keep a record of names and dates.
Do a 60-minute walkabout to spot what looks tired, messy, or unsafe
Set a timer for an hour. Walk the same route a visitor would take. Bring a phone for photos and a notebook for exact locations (outside number 14, next to the post box, by the zebra crossing).
Use a simple checklist, then rate each issue for impact (how visible it is) and risk (how unsafe it feels):
- Litter hotspots and corners where rubbish gathers
- Overflowing bins or bins placed far from takeaways
- Broken paving, loose slabs, cracked kerbs
- Weeds in gutters, around signs, along walls
- Faded signs and peeling noticeboards
- Poor lighting on key routes
- Graffiti and sticker build-up on poles and shutters
- Shabby shopfronts (chipped paint, cluttered windows)
- Empty planters or dead hanging baskets
- Cluttered posters taped to windows and railings
After the walk, pick the top five by impact and the top five by risk. Usually, three items appear on both lists. Those are your first projects.
Choose three “high-impact, low-effort” wins
Now choose three jobs that you can finish within three weeks. Keep them visible and doable. For example, a clean-up day on one route, repainting railings by the square, and placing planters at the town centre entrance.
Then get the right “yes”. Speak to the local council first, because they can tell you what’s allowed. After that, contact highways for pavements, housing associations for estate frontages, and landlords for shopfronts. Shop owners often help once they know it’s organised and fair.
Also check local rules for paint colours, hanging baskets, pavement displays, and signage. Some places require approved shades. Others limit what can sit on the pavement, because it blocks access.
Set a timeline you can keep. A simple rhythm works best: one planning week, one action weekend, then a follow-up week for fixes. Finally, name who will maintain each improvement after launch day. If nobody owns it, it won’t last.
Make the town look loved, clean, green, and full of colour
You don’t need fancy features to shift the mood. Most town centre improvements come down to five things: litter, planting, paint, lighting, and small repairs. Do those well and the place feels different.
Aim for changes people notice while walking at normal speed. A clean kerb line, a tidy noticeboard, a fresh bench, a planter that’s actually alive. These are small signals, but they add up.
Keep accessibility in mind as you go. A “pretty” street that’s hard to use isn’t a win. Leave clear widths on pavements, avoid trip hazards, and think about pushchairs, wheelchairs, and people with sight loss.
Beauty should never come at the cost of access. If someone has to step into the road, the design has failed.
Run a clean-up and declutter that lasts longer than one weekend
- A volunteer clean-up works best when it feels safe and contained. Choose a short route and a clear start and end time. Provide gloves, bags, litter pickers, hand sanitiser, and a basic first-aid kit. Brief everyone on safe areas, especially near traffic.
- Sort waste as you go, if it’s realistic. Separate recycling from general waste, and don’t let bags pile up where they’ll split. Report fly-tipping rather than moving it yourself, because some waste can be hazardous. Most councils have an online form, so assign one person to log reports on the day.
- To make the change stick, create small “adopt-a-street” teams. Keep it light. A monthly 30-minute sweep beats one massive weekend that exhausts everyone.
- If litter clusters in the same spots, adjust the environment. Ask for a bin to be moved, or add one near takeaways (with permission). Also bring posters under control by agreeing one tidy community board in a visible place, then removing taped notices elsewhere. It sounds strict, yet it reduces the sense of mess.
Add greenery and colour in the places people notice first
- Plants soften hard edges. They also signal that someone turns up, waters, and pays attention.
- Start with planters at gateways, outside key buildings, and on corners that feel bare. Hanging baskets work well on the high street, if someone can water them. Tree pits can take low planting, if you don’t pile soil against the trunk. Pocket parks can be as small as two benches and a planter, as long as they feel intentional.
- Make watering simple. Use a rota, collect rainwater in a water butt where allowed, and ask nearby shop owners to top up a planter outside their door. Most will, if you keep it tidy and not in the way. Leave enough pavement width, and avoid spiky plants near narrow paths.
Refresh tired surfaces with paint, repairs, and better lighting
- Paint is one of the cheapest ways to lift a street. Focus on railings, benches, bollards, and community walls. Choose approved colours, then buy decent exterior paint that lasts. A small patch job done well beats a rushed full repaint.
- Fix hazards as you spot them. Report loose slabs, broken drain covers, and wobbly handrails, then track the job numbers. Follow up politely each week. Persistence gets results.
- Lighting changes how safe a place feels. Note dark spots on key routes, especially between bus stops, car parks, and the high street. Then report them and ask businesses to check shopfront lights. Warm, even light helps, while harsh glare can make shadows worse.
- If graffiti is a constant issue, consider a tasteful mural with local artists and clear permission. In some locations, anti-graffiti coatings also help, although they still need upkeep.
Get local people and businesses involved
A town beauty makeover lasts when it becomes normal. That means shared ownership, small routines, and a way to replace what wears out.
Start by making it easy for people to join. Not everyone wants a four-hour shift. Some can do 20 minutes. Others can make posters, call suppliers, or water plants twice a week.
Businesses matter too, because they sit on the most visible streets. When they see footfall rise and complaints drop, support often follows. Keep the tone friendly and practical, not demanding.
Make it a community project, not a one-person mission
Build a small team of five to ten. Give everyone a clear role, so nobody carries it all:
- Organiser: sets dates, keeps the plan simple
- Council contact: handles permissions and reports
- Business liaison: speaks to shop owners and landlords
- Volunteer lead: recruits helpers and manages kit
- Social media and photos: shares updates and thanks people
Recruit in places that already have trust. Try school newsletters, faith groups, sports clubs, residents’ groups, and a stall at the weekend market. Also offer child-friendly tasks like poster making, planting with supervision, or counting litter picks. Include options for limited mobility, such as photo logging, phone calls, or watering at ground level.
Find money, materials, and long-term maintenance
You don’t need a huge budget, but you do need a plan. Look for small council grants, local sponsors, and “buy a planter” donations. Ask tool libraries for kit, and speak to paint or garden suppliers about discounts. People like helping when they can see where it goes.
Then write a maintenance plan that fits real life. Keep it short: a monthly tidy, seasonal planting days, and an annual repaint for one small area. Use a shared calendar, so dates don’t live in one person’s head.
Track progress in simple ways. Take before-and-after photos from the same spot. Keep a checklist for each street. If you want numbers, choose one or two measures, such as less litter on the main route, more volunteers over time, or fewer repeat complaints to the council.
