Small-Town Regeneration Insights #13

Regeneration isn’t just about undertaking projects; it’s about selecting the right ones. The best projects deliver real impact, build momentum, and reflect the community’s values and aspirations.

From Many Options to the Right Ones: Making Choices That Matter

In the previous step (see Small Town Regeneration Insights #12), towns generated a wide range of possible projects. This was an important stage because it allowed creativity to flow and ensured no idea was dismissed too early. But towns rarely have the resources, time, or capacity to pursue everything at once. The reality is that choices must be made.

This step is where structure comes in. By applying agreed criteria, categorising projects into clear types, and prioritising which to pursue first, towns avoid scattershot decision-making. Instead, they build a sequence of projects that reinforce one another and maintain momentum.

Making choices is not about closing doors. It’s about creating a roadmap that balances ambition with feasibility, and vision with resources. It ensures that each project, whether large or small, contributes to the bigger picture of regeneration.

With that foundation, towns turn to selection criteria to guide the conversation.

Setting Selection Criteria

When ideas are first put forward, everything feels important. But towns need a way to separate projects that are desirable from those that are both desirable and achievable. This is where selection criteria come in. Criteria act as the common yardstick that allows residents, municipal officials, and partners to weigh projects against one another. Without them, choices risk being driven by personalities, politics, or short-term pressures. With them, the conversation shifts to agreed measures of value and impact, ensuring decisions are fair, transparent, and defensible.

Typical criteria include:

• Strategic importance: alignment with the town’s vision and long-term goals.
• Economic impact: potential to stimulate the local economy, attract investment, and support businesses.
• Anchor potential: ability to act as a catalyst for further development and interest.
• Employment creation: opportunities for both short-term and long-term jobs.
• Community buy-in – evidence of local support and involvement.
• Feasibility and sustainability – financial viability, technical soundness, and capacity to endure over time.
• Environmental impact – contribution to ecological health and sustainability.
• Synergy with existing initiatives – complementing rather than duplicating ongoing efforts.

To apply these criteria in practice, many towns use a Project Evaluation Matrix. This tool sets out the criteria in a simple table and allows each project to be scored and weighted. The benefit is transparency. Everyone can see not only which projects perform better, but also why. For example, a Historic Town Square Revitalisation might score highly across most criteria because it restores heritage, supports local traders, draws visitors, and serves as a visible anchor. A Green Space Upgrade Initiative might score lower on strategic importance but higher on environmental impact and community buy-in. The matrix doesn’t rank projects yet, but it gives a balanced, evidence-based comparison.

Once projects have been assessed, the next question is not only how strong they are, but how they fit together. That’s where categorisation comes in.

Categorising Projects

Criteria tell us how good a project is, but they don’t show how projects relate to one another. For that, towns use categorisation. Categorising projects prevents an unbalanced approach where all attention goes to “big ticket” items while smaller, everyday improvements are overlooked. It helps towns build a portfolio of initiatives that delivers immediate wins, enables long-term change, and responds directly to community needs.

Projects generally fall into three categories:

1. Strategic projects: Large-scale initiatives with transformative impact. Examples include redeveloping a transport hub, unlocking land for industry, or regenerating a main street. These projects reshape the town and attract outside investment.
2. Supportive projects: Complementary initiatives that enhance strategic projects. These could be lighting and signage around a new square, skills training aligned with an agro-processing hub, or tree planting to strengthen tourism appeal. They are enablers.
3. Identified need projects: Smaller initiatives responding directly to community concerns. These include shaded seating at informal gathering spots, a clean-up campaign, or targeted business support. They may not be highly visible, but they address lived realities.

Strategic projects transform, supportive projects enable, and identified need projects respond directly to lived realities.

Practical example: A local business incubator might be categorised as a supportive project, helping entrepreneurs thrive alongside a larger CBD revitalisation. A green space upgrade could be an identified need project, improving quality of life for residents. Grouping projects this way ensures that attention is spread across the strategic, the supportive, and the immediate.

Categorisation creates structure, but towns still face the question of what to do first. That requires prioritisation.

Prioritising What Comes First

Even with criteria and categories in place, resources are always limited. Prioritisation is the step that recognises this reality. Not every project can begin at the same time. Decisions need to be made about sequencing, timing, and resourcing. Prioritisation ensures that the most catalytic and feasible projects move forward first, while others are planned for later stages. This keeps regeneration realistic, visible, and credible.

While the Project Evaluation Matrix provides a broad assessment, the Project Prioritisation Matrix adds another layer by ranking projects based on timing and readiness. It weighs factors such as:

• Investor attractiveness: potential to draw partners and funders.
• Community and municipal benefits: tangible improvements for residents and governance.
• Employment creation: how many jobs can be created and sustained.
• Local economic development impact: strengthening small businesses and competitiveness.
• Implementation readiness: whether approvals, land, and funding are already in place.

In other words, the evaluation matrix helps decide which projects are worth pursuing, while the prioritisation matrix helps decide which ones to pursue first.

Practical example: Using this method, the town square revitalisation might be prioritised first due to visibility and funding readiness, followed by a local business incubator that builds economic resilience. A green space initiative may be scheduled later, not because it lacks value, but because it is less catalytic at the current moment.

Quick Guide: Evaluation Matrix vs. Prioritisation Matrix
	Project EVALUATION Matrix	Project PRIORITISATION Matrix
Purpose	Assesses whether projects align with strategic goals and deliver real impact.	Ranks projects to determine which should start first.
Criteria	Strategic importance, economic impact, employment creation, community buy-in, feasibility, sustainability, environmental impact, synergy with other initiatives.	Investor attractiveness, benefits to community and municipality, employment potential, local economic development impact, implementation readiness.
Outcome	A fair comparison of projects, showing strengths and weaknesses without yet deciding timing.	A clear order of which projects to pursue immediately, which to schedule later, and which to hold.

Why This Step Matters

Making choices is not about closing the door on ideas. Making choices is where regeneration shifts from possibility to direction. Towns start with many ideas, but through agreed criteria, sensible categorisation, and careful prioritisation, they identify the ones that matter most for impact, momentum, and credibility.

This doesn’t mean other ideas are lost. It means the town now has a structured roadmap—clear on what to begin with, what to build towards, and what to hold for the future. In doing so, regeneration becomes not just a list of projects, but a deliberate sequence of actions that move the town closer to its vision.

The next step, Formalise Decisions, takes these choices and locks in responsibility, resources, and commitment. That’s where intent becomes action.

For More Information

STR Implementing Agent: CITEPLAN (Pty) Ltd | Technical Manager: Istell Orton-Nightingale at istell@citeplan.net or Communication Contact: Eriva Nanyonjo at eriva@citeplan.net
Project Sponsor: Department of Cooperative Governance | Project Manager: Prabin Govender at prabing@cogta.gov.za or Communication Contact: Moferefere Moloi at mofereferem@cogta.gov.za