Historic landmarks, heritage buildings, seafront, #streetart and installations, treasured local characters, a market – all things that can be a factor in work to strengthen the vitality and viability of your town or city centre and its businesses today.
It’d be really interesting to hear how important those features are if you have them in your place.
For us it was part of a fascinating out & about in Fleetwood – the latest town centre we’re supporting on tackling #highstreet vacancy. 40 locations now with three more joining in the weeks ahead…
…and it started us thinking how all those elements can contribute to ‘next steps’.
As well as getting a ‘place partnership’ on the case, the other main focus of our ‘audit, engage, encourage, promote’ approach is exploring the role of arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, history & heritage, leisure, education, health and health & wellbeing as potential go-to options to take on empty units. And you can get a clue to how much promise those have from the street scene and surroundings.
Really looking forward now to doing the follow on research to understand the status of the vacant units in the central streets here, their backstory, barriers to let and ways to overcome them…
…but it already looks – alongside the existing #retail, #hospitality and services offer – like those ‘alternative’ or additional use types could be key.
How important are they in driving change in your place…? Do let us know…
