How much is reducing the number of empty highstreet shops in your town centre featuring in your ‘Pride in Place’ programme planning…?
For sure, if you have more than say one in ten vacant, they’ll impact on resident and visitor perceptions of your place and those of the businesses you do have, especially if empty units are looking worse for wear. You may be getting negative media stories and certainly adverse comments on social media. And if your number tops a certain level it’s likely to worsen unless you get on the case.
But if you could halve your headline vacancy rate within the first two years of your ‘Pride in Place’ ten, you’d likely get a big uplift in how your town centre is seen…
…and that’s added to by attracting in retail or hospitality brands that are on people’s wish list, increasing the number of attractive independents and seeing ‘alternative’ / additional use types like the always popular arts & crafts, creative, community uses take up space.
The result…? Increased footfall and dwell time, extra investment and a positive momentum that helps further reduce vacancy.
Lots of reasons then to have reducing empty unit numbers and improving the mix of uses in those ‘Pride in Place’ submissions.
We’d love to talk to more local teams if you are putting your next phase programme together about how this approach can make a difference.
Do get in touch…
