Four years ago this week since I closed the laptop on my time as Oxford City Centre Manager (on Christmas Eve to make it tidy and easy for even me to remember)…
…and launched The Vacant Shops Academy.
Feel privileged to have been able to take our ‘audit, engage, encourage, promote’ approach on tackling #highstreet vacancy to 43 locations in that time…
…to have met sooooo many brilliant people working hard to make their places the best they can be, learned a huge amount, and seen local teams help take chunks out of the headline empty unit numbers they started with as well as improve the mix of uses.
My train app says those commission visits in addition to about as many again to places we’ve stopped in on just to walk-see & meet #placemaking and #property colleagues, amounts to 248 rail journeys, 27,788 miles (and 3.4 CO2 tonnes saved).
No doubt things remain challenging and there’s still much to do, but there’s such a lot that’s positive too in terms of new openings and pipelines, ‘place partnership’ working & collaboration, a range of ‘alternative’ / additional uses taking up space, amazing street art & other ‘look’ improvements and more, much more.
So time for a thank you to all those we’ve met, connected with on here and are working with.
And here’s to 2026…!
