Welcome to the December issue of the IPM’s official newsletter. Month by month the Place Bulletin is a one-stop shop for the latest news and developments in the place management industry. Whether you’re a town centre manager, an academic, policy maker or anything in between, we aim to bring you some of the stories relevant to you which have caught our eye over the past month.

This month’s Bulletin includes news on the importance of green spaces in our public areas, a new healthy living initiative in the UK, and some festive related news including Oxford's strange choice of festive decoration, the latest from the UK high street in the run up to the big day, and a report on the Light Night scheme which is instilling some much needed illumination into our towns and cities.

We also have a number of IPM updates, including an IPM seminar from John Mant, news on IPM's partnership with the Resource for Urban Design Information (Rudi), and how IPM is engaging with students.

If you are yet to renew your membership of the IPM, the Bulletin also contains information on how you can do this, as well as how new members can join.

As always, we want to hear from you if you have anything that you would like to appear in the Bulletin, particularly if you are based outside of the UK. Please contact Gareth@placemanagement.org if you have any interesting news, conference information or other ideas for forthcoming issues.

The next IPM bulletin will be out on January 12th 2009.