It’s a town centre with a really interesting tackling vacancy story emerging.
Sensibly, everyone involved here – agents, landlords, businesses, community, cultural organisations, councils, chamber, BID – is emphasising there’s much to do yet. And there is.
When we did an ‘audit’ here last August Crewe town centre’s headline #highstreet vacancy rate was in the high teens, and as often happens with those kind of numbers there were additions to that tally at the start of this year.
But…
- + there have since been a series of new lettings running into double figures – a community re-use warehouse and a tabletop gaming hub among them alongside #retail and #hospitality additions – and agents and landlords report more in the pipeline;
+ a number of major building and public realm projects are starting to get visibility, including a new member of the Youth Zone family and a state-of-the-art archives centre, both with work well underway;
- + there’s the council tackling vacancy grant scheme, OpenInCrewe in play to support incoming occupiers take on empty units which is making a significant difference;
+ arts & crafts, creative, culture are an exciting element of the story, not least with the always buzzing CreweMakes community gallery and workshops space.
And perhaps most intriguing, the five larger, non-shopping centre vacant units here have all seen progress: one being repurposed starting with work to convert its upper floors, two more are in planning for similar and the last two have both changed hands at auction in recent weeks with news of their next steps keenly awaited.It feels like a crucial six months lies ahead, to see how quickly those five progress and what further new lettings announce. There’s much for the ‘place partnership’ still to do…
…but #HighStreetPositives there are for sure.
