Are we missing a #highstreet story here…?

🔑 New openings, fresh investment, promising pipeline.

I ask having been out & about for #TheVacantShopsAcademy in another location – the second in a few weeks – where the headline ‘visibly vacant’ number now looks very different having run ‘audit, engage’ with #property agents to establish the actual status and backstory of those units that had appeared empty when we visited in late spring.

We’ll crunch and share those numbers in the week, but as the images show, several of them have new #retail or #hospitality occupiers already open and more have readying work underway.

For sure things remain challenging. A major brand in administration is significant and on behalf of the towns that have them, their regular customers and, importantly, all their staff, we join #placemaking colleagues in hoping for a positive outcome.

But an out & about perception, and from one or two of our locations now the data also, is telling us something different may be happening, in some places.

🤔 Is that just me…? Are colleagues finding similar…? Do let us know…