Institute of Place Management and RSA Webinar Series

Place managers across the UK are increasingly dealing with Privately Owned Public Spaces (or POPS as they are becoming know as) from city squares and retail plazas to repurposed industrial sites. A new open access article by Dr Jenny Kanellopoulou, Dr Nikos Ntounis  and Prof Steve Millington, explores how these spaces are managed on the ground and what that means for their ‘publicness’.

Managing and Navigating Manchester’s Privately Owned Public Spaces: Understanding Publicness is available to read here.

This research offers a plural property perspective, recognising that managing public space is rarely black and white. By applying the tools of legal geography, the study highlights how day-to-day decisions – about signage, access, behaviour, and maintenance shape how inclusive, accessible, and truly ‘public’ these spaces feel in practice.

For place managers, this means rethinking how to work with private owners, developers, and communities to ensure POPS contribute to local quality of life and not just commercial performance.

Join us to discuss practical challenges and solutions around POPS, ownership, and urban governance. This session will explore:

• What POPS are and why they matter to place managers
• How legal geography helps us understand public/private boundaries
• Case study: Managing POPS in Manchester
• Practical insights for working with private owners and stakeholders

Speakers:
Jenny Kanellopoulou, Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University
Nikos Ntounis, Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University
Steve Millington, Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University

Chair:
Ian Harvey, Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University

More information to follow.