The Vacant Shops Academy

I so wish you could’ve been with us at the two ‘place partnership’ founding meetings we were lucky to co-host last week.

Now you might be thinking, that’s a bit niche…

… but if you’re an agent, landlord, business owner, lead a community group or cultural organisations, a council member or officer or head up a chamber or BID where there is one, in a town or city centre with too many empty units or only a few but ones that are proving tricky to get back in play, I’m certain you’ll find it’s time well spent.

In this case, two ninety-minute meetings in neighbour towns with different but connected vacancy challenges and you can quickly see why the concept at the heart of our approach works so well…

• Ideas and experiences shared
• Questions answered
• Understanding improved
• Connections made
• Solutions emerging.

It’s just so encouraging to see that happen and the sense build through the meeting that they will be able to make a difference…

…and that’s bearing in mind it was a first run, some of the partners know each other well, are working together already, but others had not met.

We’re already planning and looking forward to the next meetings when we’ll focus in on the town’s priority empty units and hopefully “get the keys” and go visit one or two of them.

If vacancy is an issue in your place and you’re not yet working together on it, as Cinderford and Coleford now are, do please get in touch. It’d be great talk you through…

Arts & crafts, creative, culture, community could play a much bigger part than they already do by taking on more empty units in our town and city centres.

It’s a case we regularly make in setting out potential ‘next steps’ for places we’re supporting with tackling highstreet vacancy.

It’s also something central to the approach we set out in Crewe town centre for reasons highlighted on a recent post here.

So could your town or city centre make them more of the mix you have…?

This post was sparked by my walk-see this week in Banbury town centre from where the image set was taken, because they have a number of examples of units taken on by businesses and organisations with creativity at their heart…

…and also because a similar question for a ‘place partnership’ there might be could more of your blank spaces feature wall art…?

I’d love to hear examples of these kinds of ventures getting established in empty units where you are from fellow places leaders and managers.

Do let me know…

What might seem like quite small positive changes can definitely make my day on a town centre visit.

The lead image is one that did.

It’s a now very long-time empty unit in Banbury that you see early on a walk-see if you start (as I mostly do in places) from the rail station.

But this time – having looked increasingly worse for wear for years – it has now been painted.

I’ve no idea if this means it has a new owner or even better a would-be occupier on the case, but…

Banbury isn’t a location we have a tackling highstreet vacancy commission but it is one I know well having had a town team role there for a few years, and it’s somewhere I always think has a lot to like including…

• An attractive set of heritage buildings;
• A still strong and varied group of independents and a range of national brands and banks;
• The canal (with its new largely leisure-focused operators alongside);
• A shopping centre which is grappling with the changing face of retail and encouragingly introducing some of our ‘alternative’ / additional use types instead;
• A sizeable commercial sector in units around the core town centre that could be customers for its retail, hospitality and services offer;
• Some really interesting opportunities among the visibly vacant units as well as signs of investment and repurposing underway with others.

We haven’t done an ‘audit’ there so don’t know what the exact empty unit numbers are, but it has the players you need for a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’, and with all the town’s strengths you’d be confident it could be one of those to halve its headline rate in 18 months.

If your town centre is like that I’d love to swap notes about the approach you’re taking to getting those empty units back in play and improving the mix of uses.

Do let me know…

Super excited to be headed out & about on a series of visits to support local tackling highstreet vacancy teams…

First to begin work with two ‘place partnership’ groups as they get started on reducing the number of empty units and improving the mix of uses in their town centres, including planning their version of our ‘get the keys’ initiative;

Then a return visit to a town we’ve completed the initial ‘audit, engage’ stage to paint a clear picture of their vacancy challenge, to see what’s changed and meet some of those locally who’ve agreed to play a part in ‘next steps’;

And mid-next month to make a start on a new commission – the 47th location we’ve taken our tackling highstreet vacancy approach.

It’s one of the joys of the job to visit new places, to draw on our experiences and learning since 2013, to share our approach with local teams as they get on the case, and most of all to meet the brilliant individuals and organisations working to make their town or city centre the best it can be.

This visits set is an interesting trio because it highlights three key elements of our approach: identifying the vacant units and trying to work out why they’re like that, bringing together individuals and organisations who are keen to play a part in overcoming the barriers to getting those units back into play, and supporting ‘place partnership’ teams as they crack on.

If your place still has too many empty units and / or you have residents and existing businesses concerned that the mix of uses is changing and not in a positive way, especially if you’re thinking about deploying High Street Rental Auctions, we’d love to add you to our visits list for this autumn.

Do get in touch…!

Here’s the answer to having more business types from your wish list on the highstreet…

…and it doesn’t include waiting for the government to adjust planning policy to help limit those you’re less keen on.

Partly because that might take a while to introduce, but mostly because there’s stuff YOU can do now.

Why wait…? You could be working on halving your headline vacancy rate in 18 months and improve that mix of uses at the same time.

Deciding, together, as a place what goes into those empty units and, importantly helping make that happen, are crucial to delivering the vibrant, varied town and city centres we’re looking for…

…but it’s still an approach only being taken by a few rather than many.

Too often still we’re leaving things to the commercial property market, even though we know it’s grappling with its own challenges.

On average 53% of visibly vacant units in places we’ve run our ‘audit’ didn’t have an agent involved in trying to get them let (that ongoing dataset now covers more than 1,000 empty units across 46 locations)…

…and even when there is a letting, resident and existing businesses feedback is sometimes underwhelming because they don’t feel the new occupier adds to the current mix.

So rather than think of tackling highstreet vacancy as “just an agent-landlord thing”, get the whole place – council(s), chamber, BID where there is one, existing businesses, community, cultural organisations – to join in.

• work together to overcome barriers to getting units ready to be occupied (maybe their condition, size, layout need sorting);
• think about what ideal occupiers look like and canvas the views of your communities about what they’d like to see and would support;
• consider ‘alternative’ / additional use types that might work;
• then go try recruit target occupiers, potentially via a place-led pop-up shop project to give them a start.

We call it a ‘place partnership’ approach and we’re super excited to be heading out & about again in the next few weeks to support local teams that are getting on the case.

If your town or city centre has more empty units than you’d like and / or you’re concerned that the mix of occupiers is changing but in a way that’s not as positive as it could be, we’d love to help…!

The image features ‘Rock Your Garden’, Galashiels – a story that’s well worth checking out, as this explains: “After years of building his business through markets and events across the Borders, Lee was ready to take the next step and open his first permanent premises in Galashiels. With support from BID for Galashiels, Lee was able to navigate the commercial property process and find a home for Rock Your Garden in the town centre.”

“It’s time to get that large vacant former retail brand or department store unit on your highstreet sorted.”

Especially if you’ve more than one clustered together in part of your town or city centre.

It’s a theme of more than one of our tackling vacancy conversations this week and echoes a number we had before the summer break.

Now it’s time.

Thinking around the locations we’re supporting local teams on reducing the number of empty units they have and improving the mix of uses, these examples tend to have features in common…

• they’re large, often multi floor and can be local landmarks;
• they’ve been empty a while now – some still carrying the branding for bhs or Debenhams which gives you a clue on timing;
• they’re starting to look worse for wear;
• they may not now have an agent’s lettings board up or if they do it’s been there a while (and may not be in great shape itself);
• the unit is mentioned often in press reports and social media comment about how your place is faring;
• (on a bit of a technical point) you might find the previous occupier is still paying the rent or even owns the building;
• …and it could be that – even in England where it’s a potential go-to – the building falls outside the scope of High Street Rental Auction powers.

These examples are always for us on the list of priority units for the ‘place partnership’ teams we encourage locations to get on the case with and great illustrations of how that approach – bringing extra experience, expertise, connections, resources and possibly powers to the table – can start to move them forward when the commercial property market is stuck.

It’s also ideal for our “get the keys” project…

…and on the positive side, there are now plenty of case studies to draw on from around the country of how these spaces are being brought back into play.

So if you’ve one or more of these sitting empty, it’d be great to hear from you…

20+ per cent of the units in your town or city centre are vacant.”

What does that tell you…?

Well obviously it says you have a significant empty units challenge, and if you’ve not already, you need get a positive, proactive tackling highstreet vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ on the case.

But it also means you have 75-80% of your units occupied, with business owners and their teams working hard to attract customers, increase footfall, extend dwell-time.

I’ve used 20+ per cent as a headline but the principle is the same whatever the figure.

It’s why one of the four elements of our ‘audit, engage, encourage, promote’ approach to tackling highstreet vacancy is ‘promote’.

It’s so easy to have empty units dominate the narrative so that the businesses you do have get forgotten…

…and when you’re trying to attract in would-be new occupiers it’s no help if some of those you have already leave too.

So – as a place – make videos, profile the people behind the shopfronts, get on your social media channels with positive stories, run collective promotions like restaurant week or similar, create trails linking businesses together & more.

It makes such a difference from mood and morale to finances and in the end stay-or-go decision-making. It’ll also help with those efforts to attract new occupiers and investors.

It’d be great to hear how you’re promoting the businesses in your place while the work to get empties let continues…