Case Studies

We publish our findings in the News Centre and categorise each article as case studies. You can find our latest case studies below, but three notable examples are:

Aberdeen is a beacon for the way it has taken up the ‘place partnership’ approach to tackling vacancy on its central Union Street, particularly with its upper floors study and follow-on initiative. The impact it is having is something that we think other places with unused and underutilised upper floors (as an issue) could draw on for sure.

Crewe is an example of a place that has focused on arts & crafts, creative, culture and community uses in its initial work to tackle town centre vacancy. This is not to say that retail, hospitality, and services have not been part of the story too; they all have and will continue to be. What we call the ‘alternative’ or additional use types, however, are what we focused on to make a start on that road to reduce the number of empty units and build the momentum required to move others forward.

Kirkcaldy town centre had, at the time of our initial ‘audit’, a headline vacancy rate close to double the national average. At the heart of our approach here is creating a positive, proactive, tackling-vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ with a wider group of stakeholders to focus on this issue. That first visit and subsequent conversations suggest Kirkcaldy is perhaps better placed than many locations to drive this forward.

Tredegar is also tackling vacancy with a slightly different focus, working on ‘look’ initiatives including public realm, street furniture painting and other refresh work, plus creating stunning pieces of wall art. Their aim here is to improve the town centre environment to help attract customers and visitors, and to create a great first impression for new would-be business occupiers and investors.