The Vacant Shops Academy

Tackling vacancy: a role for you…

A road sign propped up against the window of a vacant shop.
  • Many places have more empty units than they need to;
  • It’s not “just an agents-landlords thing”. The commercial property market has its own challenges;
  • Experience of tackling empty shops projects is that the most impactful are those where all stakeholders – agents, landlords, businesses, community, council(s), cultural organisations, chamber and BID (where they have one) – work together on this;
  • In our first project the number of empty units reduced from 23 to 3 in 18 months…
  • …but it’s more than about numbers, it’s also about the mix of use types and this approach can impact that too.

Academy locations 45 and counting, including…

We are working with places across the country, from Aberdeen to Poole and Dovercourt to Carmarthen. Please see a map below showing where we have worked so far (with purple pins) and where we are working in 2025-26 (with grey pins):

Our approach to tackling High Street vacancy has four elements:

  1. Audit – list your existing vacant units and any that might soon become so, and assess any business type gaps in your town or city centre mix to identify what would be good additions.
  2. Engage – build and maintain strong relationships with agents and landlords, as well as existing businesses so that you understand the back story of each vacant unit and its barriers to letting, and become a trusted point of contact to get updates when there are changes.
  3. Encourage – the lettings process both via agents and landlords, and would-be occupiers, especially those on the target list, including ‘meanwhile…’ use* where that can help, and establish a role as a go-to for businesses looking to establish a presence in your place.
  4. Promote – use your social media outputs (and traditional media where available and supportive) to share positive updates on progress with your communities, the property sector, existing businesses and would-be occupiers.
Image thanks to Zoe Campbell Photography

The approach can:

  • help reduce the number of vacant units in your town or city centre,
  • improve the mix of business types, and…
  • tackle the negative impact on the look and perception of your place that empty shops can have on residents, potential visitors and would-be occupiers.

It gives you:

  • a better understanding of the real story behind your headline vacancy rate, and
  • a clearer guide to the policies and projects your place needs to improve this key metric.

It’s also:

  • easily transferable, so that
  • once learned and embedded, your council, BID, town team or local group can run it yourselves – and that’s crucial to the ‘Academy’ ethos. Sharing this approach so that local placemaking teams develop the skills to adopt and run it long-term, rather than it being a task & finish consultancy project.

Our ‘Meanwhile… use’ toolkit is a detailed 4-step guide to developing and running pop-up shop projects.

To discuss how the ‘audit, engage, encourage, promote’ approach to reducing vacant unit numbers and improving the mix can work for your place, and how the ‘Meanwhile… use’ toolkit has been successfully implemented in a variety of locations, please do contact us or connect via LinkedIn.

Quotes

“I found Iain extremely knowledgeable and very easy to work with. The systems and learnings put in place by The Vacant Shops Academy will help Ripon for many years to come.

Our vacancy rate has dropped from 12% to 8% during the time we have worked with the Academy, and we now have much better working relationships with stakeholders such as the local authority, landlords and agents.”

– Lilla Bathurst, Manager, Ripon BID

“Aberdeen Inspired found huge value in the work carried out as part of our collaboration with The Vacant Shops Academy, which placed a microscopic lens on the acute issues facing Aberdeen’s main street, Union Street.

Stemming from this… the establishment of ‘Our Union Street’ as the vehicle to progress interventions, and helped with the development of the Union Street Empty Shops Plan with £500,000 allocated to attract new businesses to occupy empty units and sow the seeds to reduce vacancy rates.”

– Aberdeen Inspired

“The work that [Iain] has produced has proved invaluable and will be used to help the BID and the city council deliver their high street regeneration plans including the retail strategy. Iain brought so much knowledge, advice and support to the project, and has been a real pleasure to work with.

The Vacant Shops Academy will be a part of the work we do moving forwards as the relationship we have built will benefit us all into the future.”

– Sunderland BID

“Iain has been fantastic to work with. His knowledge of high streets and placemaking has been so helpful to us at South Gloucestershire Council, and his recommendations were measured after spending time getting to know all our high streets individually. 

We have taken Iain’s advice and are about to launch a vacant commercial property grant, as well as putting into practice many of his other recommendations. The support he has provided us after his commission had finished has also been second to none, including attending an event for us and linking us up with other authorities and BIDs.”

– South Gloucestershire Council

“Working with Iain in 2022 on the first vacant shops project for Union Street played a significant part in shaping the Empty Shops Action Plan and ultimately leading to the now highly successful Empty Shops Grant scheme which is playing a big part in driving down Union Street vacancy rates.”

– Ross Grant, Aberdeen Inspired

“The Vacant Shops Academy has played a key role in supporting Cheshire East Council in the creation and operation of a new grant scheme to support repurposing of town centre properties in Crewe. From initial advice and support in developing the business case, through to their well-honed approach in ‘audit, engage, encourage, promote’, their insights and encouragement have been crucial.

It’s not always been straightforward, given the challenges of engaging with property owners and agents, but together we’ve navigated a way through that is helping to reinvigorate and diversify Crewe town centre with a mix of vibrant and sustainable businesses.”

– Cheshire East Council

“We are extremely pleased with progress made so far and looking forward to what the future brings for Tredegar and all our town centres in Blaenau Gwent.”

– Team Manager, Regeneration Opportunities

“We were particularly interested in Iain’s ‘audit, engage, encourage, promote’ methodology and we’re starting to see the benefit of the first two phases. Our agents, landlords and community partners are more engaged with us, and The Vacant Shops Academy approach has started some really useful conversations, which we are excited to see progress.

The data from The Vacant Shops Academy is really thorough and well explained. It’s really handy to see common problems and understand any barriers to letting. The recommendations are useful, well thought out, and we will definitely be taking many of them forward.”

– Heath Gunter, former Chief Executive, Cheltenham BID

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