The Vacant Shops Academy

Safe to say…!

“It’s going to be the difference between units sitting empty longer on your high street and coming back to life with new occupiers.”

If you’ve not yet started to take your tackling high street vacancy team into those landmark, large, sometimes heritage but now vacant buildings in your town or city centre, please do.

How powerful this approach can be was emphasised for me on an inspiring and encouraging day in two Forest of Dean towns.

We took a mixed public-private sector team into three units – two in Cinderford, one in Coleford – as part of the tackling vacancy ‘next steps’ we’re supporting there.

Planners, building control, conservation officers together with architects, developers, investors, property agents, community and creative organisation leads. Exploring three very different units and working out who could be their next occupier, what the barriers are / how they can be overcome and which partners can help make that happen.

Heading home, I’m thinking there’s a much better chance those units will find a new future, hopefully quicker than they otherwise would and potentially to uses that better fit what residents and existing businesses would like to see.

If your place hasn’t yet taken on this “get the keys” approach, please get in touch.

So 60 local councils now have £125m between them…

“…to bring prominent long term vacant or derelict buildings back into productive community or commercial use.”

Given our focus on tackling high street vacancy it was the most exciting of a series of Budget Day announcements.

…especially as our approach and experiences from working on this issue with 51 locations so far looks to be the ideal project partner for places now in the Derelict Buildings Fund spotlight.

Our ‘audit, engage’ process to establish which units are vacant, what the barriers are to getting them back in play and how they’re best overcome plus exploring potential occupier options including those ‘alternative’ / additional uses beyond retail, hospitality and services, is just what places need as a baseline ahead of choosing which buildings to use their funding on and imagining what their next use might be.

If your place is among the 60, it’d be great to swap notes…!

What are the most intriguing empty buildings in your town centre…?

The ones you’d most like to see back in use.

It’s maybe because they’re landmark / heritage buildings.

Perhaps they’ve been vacant for ages or in the worst state.

Could be they had a previous occupier that made it one of your favourite, memorable visits.

It’s the kind of thinking we go through with local teams when we’re building a ‘target units’ set for their tackling highstreet vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ to prioritise, including making them high on the list for a “get the keys” project.

…and it was a question we were reminded of in Bicester on the first of what will be 12 The Vacant Shops Academy town visits in the next 6 weeks.

For us it’s a mix of first trips to run ‘audit, engage’, progressing ‘place partnership’ projects or catching up with colleagues working on their own empty shop and placemaking challenges to swap notes and share experiences.

So which of your empty units are you highlighting and why…?

Just the twelve towns to visit in the next six weeks then…

It’s one of the joys of this job.

Getting to see new locations and meet local teams working hard to make their place the best it can be.

Quietening down in the run to Christmas…? Doesn’t much look like it.

This set of visits includes:

• running just the ‘audit’ part of our approach to help update the vacancy picture for a group of locations in one council area (a first for us this, as we’ll typically do so only as part of a wider tackling highstreet vacancy approach);
• working with “get the keys” groups and going inside priority empty units in a number of the towns we’re supporting;
• a return visit to one town we’ve been advising to catch up with lead connections for organisations that have brought arts & crafts, creative, community uses to empty units;
• making a first ‘audit, engage’ visit to the 51st location we’ve taken our foundation approach since the start of The Vacant Shops Academy;
• meeting up with members of our new ‘tackling highstreet vacancy Network’, thvN, to talk through the work they’re doing on this issue and see where we can assist.

We always learn a huge amount from these visits and find at least one thing, often several, that we can share with other places we’re supporting.

If the number of empty units in your town centre is above the national average, in the high teens or even in the twenty percents, we’d love to add you to our emerging ‘27 visits list.

Do let us know…

Here’s why I’m so optimistic about reducing the number of empty shops in our town centres and dropping the long-stuck national highstreet vacancy rate into single figures.

The bit that gets missed from the (still mostly) gloomster reporting and analysis of the highstreet is the huge amount of work that’s going on behind the scenes.

Check back on the most recent stories you’ve seen about our town and city centres and they’ll likely have been about store or bank closures, crime & asb, business rates and the like.

To be fair all these are issues that need tackling but still – overall – it’s not fully reflecting the projects and initiatives underway to strengthen our places.

The HighStreetPositives.

So I thought in this post I’d share just some of the things we’re seeing and hearing from local teams we’re working with on tackling highstreet vacancy.

It’s maybe not the stuff of headlines. It’s detailed, careful, thoughtful, collaborative work that often takes time to deliver, but there’s loads of it being done and ultimately it will make a positive difference.

Things like…

• ‘place partnership’ groups in two more of the towns we’re supporting now fixing to “get the keys” and take a mixed public-private sector team into some of their priority empty units, a third town looks like it will be on the case soon;
• three locations working on developing a pop-up shop initiative to get empty units back in play and give potential longer-term occupiers a chance to try out business in their highstreet or local shopping centre;
• a number of places exploring access to cash and banking services to replace what they’ve lost with the closure of the final branch there;
• place leaders and managers reaching out to landlords and agents for long-time vacants to explore occupier options, barriers to letting and possible ways they can be overcome.

And those are all drawn from just this week’s The Vacant Shops Academy exchanges.

It’d be great to hear what you’re working on…

Can a strikingly-restored shopping arcade be a new anchor for your town centre.

What about a refurbished market.

Or the local college or university taking on a large, landmark building.

Maybe a community gallery and art space – like Platform in Crewe as an example – could play that anchor role, which has been traditionally one for retail brands and banks.

It’s a question we talked through while starting our ‘audit, engage’ commission in Dewsbury – the 47th we’ve taken the approach to so far…

…and it’s going to be really interesting to run our tackling highstreet vacancy work in a town centre that has two, potentially three major regen projects in play.

First the newly-re-opened, community-owned, independently-focused Arcade, which is an exciting story emerging and one that’s being closed watched nationally as well as here.

Just starting now is a transformation of the town’s historic market and adjoining spaces…

…and the impact of those two plus the central presence of the college’s higher skills centre on the vacancy challenge will be intriguing to see.

It’d be great to hear from place leaders and managers with examples of how uses other than big retail brand stores have started to be your town centre anchor and play that crucial role in creating attention, drawing footfall and extending dwell-time.

Do let us know…

It’s super encouraging to be getting upbeat updates from local teams we’re working with on reducing the number of empty units in their town centres…

…to hear about the projects and initiatives they’re exploring and getting underway.

They’ll likely not make national media headlines, but it’s the kind of careful, thought-out, collaborations, interventions, sometimes innovations that are making a difference.

Things like…

• taking on, as a ‘place’, one or more of those empty units for a pop-up shop project;
• building on wall art examples the town centre already has with a streetart festival;
• creating a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ to get the full range of stakeholders involved in this work;
• starting a “get the keys” initiative to take a mixed public-private sector team inside priority empty units to work out occupier options, barriers and a way forward, together;
• exploring new access to cash / banking services opportunities after their last branch closed;
• examining High Street Rental Auctions as a potential tool to deploy;
• connecting with agents and property directors who have new store or venue requirement lists, to put their place forward as a candidate;
• taking the lead on a conversation around options for their TG Jones unit on closure and on how to retain Post Office services in town.

These are all things we can support local teams with and, like the ‘next steps’ we draw up for places, there’s a mix – some are about the actual units themselves, others to do with ‘look’ and wider placemaking. Both have an important part to play in getting your empty unit numbers down.

If vacancy rates in your town centre are too high, we’d love to talk about how our ‘audit, engage’ approach would help move them in the right direction…!

Two really interesting tackling highstreet vacancy conversations this week…

One for print, the other broadcast.

…and the question.

“Could our ‘audit, engage’ approach work there, specifically in this case for London, Ontario.”

It all reminded me of commission conversations with place leaders and managers in UK locations who wanted to know if we could help them reduce the number of empty units they have and improve the mix of uses.

My answer in each case was, 100% yes.

For a Canadian city I wondered first…

How much difference does the varying terminology make…? Where we have town centres, highstreet, shops, commercial property they’d call downtown, Main Street, storefronts and real estate.

Perhaps more significant there’s different politics, policy and regulations.

Even so my sense, which I shared for both interviews, is “yes”, get a ‘place partnership’ in play rather than treat the challenge as “just an agent-landlord thing”, look beyond retail, hospitality and services to our ‘alternative’ / additional list of go-to options from art & crafts through community to health & wellbeing, and you’ll see those empty storefronts turned positive again.

What do you reckon…?

How much is reducing the number of empty highstreet shops in your town centre featuring in your ‘Pride in Place’ programme planning…?

For sure, if you have more than say one in ten vacant, they’ll impact on resident and visitor perceptions of your place and those of the businesses you do have, especially if empty units are looking worse for wear. You may be getting negative media stories and certainly adverse comments on social media. And if your number tops a certain level it’s likely to worsen unless you get on the case.

But if you could halve your headline vacancy rate within the first two years of your ‘Pride in Place’ ten, you’d likely get a big uplift in how your town centre is seen…

…and that’s added to by attracting in retail or hospitality brands that are on people’s wish list, increasing the number of attractive independents and seeing ‘alternative’ / additional use types like the always popular arts & crafts, creative, community uses take up space.

The result…? Increased footfall and dwell time, extra investment and a positive momentum that helps further reduce vacancy.

Lots of reasons then to have reducing empty unit numbers and improving the mix of uses in those ‘Pride in Place’ submissions.

We’d love to talk to more local teams if you are putting your next phase programme together about how this approach can make a difference.

Do get in touch…