Across the UK, high streets are undergoing profound change, affected by shifting economic models, digital retail and evolving community needs (Parker et al. , 2017; Institute of Place Management, 2025). Yet, they remain symbolic and material centres of everyday life. In response to this transformation, cultural practitioners, local authorities and communities are reimagining these spaces not merely as commercial zones but as civic, cultural and educational infrastructures. Kirklees, a local authority area in West Yorkshire, that includes post-industrial towns like Huddersfield and Dewsbury, has become a fertile testing ground for this new approach. Here, culture is not an add-on but a strategic mechanism for town centre renewal, embedded in longterm place-based planning and cultural development. In this article we consider cultural and community asset building on the high street through a capabilities approach. We explore how a capabilities approach can support the development of a framework for place-based cultural development that focuses on expanding people’s real freedoms and potential to live fulfilling lives. Cultural and community assets are broadly defined as the people, places, institutions, traditions and networks that contribute to the social, cultural and economic life worlds of communities (Fancourt et al. , 2020; Thomson et al. , 2021; Local Government Association, 2022). These assets help shape a sense of identity, belonging and wellbeing and can play a central role in community development, regeneration and placemaking. Our central aim is to examine how lifelong learning can be fostered through cultural engagement and participation, as an informal learning process. We analyse three live action research case studies in Kirklees, Creative Piazza, Cultures of _, and the Culture Collective, to explore how co-created cultural programmes and networks on the high street contribute to wellbeing, civic agency and sustainable community regeneration. We also propose a locally situated Culture for Capabilities Framework aligned with the Place Standard Tool to enhance the strategic integration of culture in future town centre transformations.
Bailey et al. (Mon,) studied this question.