At every visit we make to one of our commissioned locations, we learn something new. Often, they are new ideas, innovations, and initiatives that we can share with local teams in other places.
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.
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.
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”It will lift the town”…!
I’ve been checking in on this building every time I’ve been in town and watched as the community-led team have slowly, carefully brought it back into play. Now – as you can see from our lead image – it’s no … Continue reading →
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Talking Upper Floors…
In London via Oxford to help showcase a pathfinding project from Aberdeen… …but it’s an approach that we reckon could be taken up by many of the town and city centre teams that were represented at the Association of Town … Continue reading →
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Why streetart…?
“Absolutely amazing”. “Brilliant.” “Awesome work”. “Beautiful.” “Wow.” “Stunning.” “Love this.” 800+ reactions, 80+ comments in just 4 hours (and counting), the vast majority of them variations on those above. It’s the latest wall art by the team we’re lucky to … Continue reading →
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Platform at the heart of Crewe’s regen journey…
One of the joys of this job is that it takes you to different places, you meet brilliant people working hard to make their town or city the best it can be… …and you find special stories. This is one. … Continue reading →
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All change at Crewe…
There’s a really interesting and encouraging story emerging here… …and very different to our first ‘audit’ walk-see in the autumn of ‘22. This is Crewe town centre, and the list above is the result of work over a number of … Continue reading →
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150+ years old but it’s time is now…
Another intriguing element of our tackling vacancy work in Tredegar is the role an historic landmark is playing now and might do going forward. It’d be really interesting to hear examples from #highstreet #placemaking colleagues of famous features in your … Continue reading →
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Why ‘look’ might be first…
Brilliant to be back in Tredegar to see the latest in their stunning wall and street art series, with more to follow… It’s a really insightful example I know other ‘place partnership’ teams are taking an interest in of how … Continue reading →
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Pride in Place…
Two of the really encouraging and inspiring projects (of many) I’ve seen since starting our tackling vacancy work… …are things you might take a moment to wonder how they help places reduce their headline vacancy rate and improve the mix … Continue reading →
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Part of the why for wall art…
It’s great to see stunning #streetart out & about in town and city centres… …and I am a big believer in the positive impact it can have on a place, including where we’re working on tackling #highstreet vacancy. So it … Continue reading →
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All change at Crewe…
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 … Continue reading →








