“Does our town centre really need more of those?”
It’s a comment you often hear when a new letting is announced because residents and existing businesses don’t think it adds to the #retail, #hospitality or services mix.
“I don’t go to town any more it’s just full of…” And then the list of whatever use types have wound the writer up.
That’s another commonly heard negative reaction to what ought to be a positive – one more empty unit being taken.
They explain why we argue that you don’t need to have a mid / high teens or over 20 per cent vacancy rate in your town or city centre to benefit from a ‘place partnership’.
In fact if that’s your place you’ve maybe got an even stronger reason. If the balance moves away from the kinds of uses that attract people in and help business owners to feel part of a positive something, then footfall and dwell time can drop away and your #highstreet goes quiet.
So why a ‘place partnership’…?
The answer is that having agents, landlords, businesses, community, cultural organisations, council(s), chamber, BID where there is one and others identified locally, working together means you can do more, better, quicker and more sustainably to strengthen your town centre.
- you can work out together what would add to the mix of uses and, as a team, try attract those to your location;
- you can, together, go visit vacant units, work out what the barriers to getting them back into use are and try tackle them with different stakeholders playing their part;
- you can ‘promote’ the place and the businesses and organisations you already have, present the empties as opportunities and highlight the newcomers as they arrive, together.
If not, a small number of empties can become bigger, and those you have turn tricky, long term – especially if they’re ex-department stores or big brand shops or previously banks.
If you start celebrating having almost no empties or none you might quickly find the overheated market sends rents rising and sees some of your favourite, long-established businesses closing. Instead you’d be better getting the ‘place partnership’ finding ways to make more space available for newcomers, growth and expansions.
Do any of those scenarios chime in your town or city centre…? Are you on the case…? It’d be great to hear from you…
