Let’s not allow any empty units we have in our town or city centres to dominate the narrative.
Places where vacancy is an issue often find that’s the talk of local social media rather than the great businesses and organisations you do have.
For sure have a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ getting to grips with the issue but – as Laura Harris emphasises in her brilliant campaign – be sure to shout about your #HighStreetPositives
After all, even if your vacancy rate is in the high teens or over 20%. Three quarters or more of the total are still occupied.
It’s one of the reasons ‘promote’ is the fourth element of our #TheVacantShopsAcademy approach along with ‘audit, engage, encourage’, and why existing town and city centre businesses have a big part to play in your tackling #highstreet vacancy project…
+ While shops and venues will sometimes close for understandable / unavoidable reasons, when you’re working to attract new occupiers into empty units, doing what you can to minimise departures helps;
+ Your existing businesses may well also be a great source of insights on possible new occupiers, maybe they’d like to take a second unit themselves to expand or do something different;
+ they may have contacts in other places who’d add to the mix in yours;
+ they’ll be an important part of the conversation about what’s missing and what types of uses to go for;
and they can be a good sounding board for potential other measures like a popup / ‘meanwhile… use’ project, tackling vacancy / shop front grant scheme or business support initiative.
It’d be great to hear from #placemaking colleagues who are already engaging existing businesses in this aspect of your work.
