The Vacant Shops Academy

How many towns promote neighbouring villages as part of their marketing and comms. Are your #highstreet businesses doing the same in their own social media…?

I ask following an enjoyable and insightful day with #TheVacantShopsAcademy in Brentwood, Ingatestone and Shenfield where the #BID Brentwood Connected covers all three places, and joint / cross-promotion is part of a really interesting conversation.

🤔 We first suggested this might be a positive ‘next step’ during a ‘health check’ project with a range of locations in South Gloucestershire. It’d be great to hear whether #placemaking friends in other towns have experience of trying it.

🏛️ It might be that your history or heritage buildings and features are something you could encourage visitors to make the short journey between locations for;

🛍️ The town’s brand #retail and #hospitality offer may be an attraction to village residents and their #indie businesses could make it worth a trip out of town;

🎭 Or it could be installations, #streetart, leisure, learning, events, markets & more that you think to focus on to make the whole greater than what each place has on its own.

Do let us know…

“I am doing MY best”.

“I can have my limitations.”

🏥 We often talk on here about the potential for #health and health & wellbeing services as one of the really promising ‘alternative’ or rather ‘additional use’ options for vacant units in our town and city centres.

It’s part of a list that also features arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, leisure, education as potential go-to occupiers now alongside the more regular #retail, #hospitality and services.

Interesting then to see examples on recent out & about trips with #TheVacantShopsAcademy of one of our NHS health trusts opening a series of #highstreet units as a ‘Mental Health & Wellbeing Hub’.

Even more striking in Banbury is that as well as taking on a unit they’ve worked with the owners / asset managers / local team to post messages on a number of the centre walls.

📸 You can see examples in the image set along with two Oxfordshire ‘shopfronts’.

Early days to know if this particular service will be well supported, but here’s hoping.

📈 Initial feedback from community diagnostic and other health service types taking shopping centre spaces to increase their accessibility, is that the footfall impact can be very positive for its neighbour businesses and organisations.

It’d be good to hear from #property and #placemaking colleagues with experience in this field on whether they see this as a developing strength other places should draw on…?

Never go back, they say…

But I guess it’s okay to walk-see a town centre and catch up with #property and #placemaking friends.

So return to Banbury, a place we got to know really well as part of its #townteam, a town centre with lots to like…

🏛️ An attractive collection of heritage buildings;

• No shortage of history to recall with a museum in the heart of the town telling those stories;

🛍️ A strong group of #indie #retail, #hospitality and services business with some recent additions very much in line with the arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, leisure, education, health & wellbeing themes of current thinking;

• The award-winning Lock 29 innovating in a former department store space;

⚓️ Canal with an historic and still active boatyard;

• New waterside development with cinema, hotel and eateries;

☀️ A stunning hanging basket display and some neat touches created by its BID;

…and much more.

What it doesn’t seem to have – and friends locally will correct me if I’m wrong – is a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ to bring agents, landlords, businesses, community, councils, cultural organisations, chamber & BID together to work on that issue, rather than in isolation.

They are of course not alone among town and city centres with this as a challenge.

📉 Is a way forward to set yourselves a target of halving #highstreet vacancy in 18 months and see how you go…?

Impossible…? Setting yourself up to fail…? Or very much worth trying to see where it gets you in reducing the number of empty units and improving the mix of uses.

🎯 For sure you wouldn’t be the first place to hit that target…!

So how does a town centre drop its number of empty #highstreet units from 23 to 3 in 18 months…?

Returning to the theme of a recent out & about and the story of Wantage, Oxfordshire – the town that was host to our first tackling vacancy project from 2013.

📉 11 years ago now, but still much that town and city centres with too many vacant units can draw on…

Crucially – and we only really learned this looking back from the perspective of places that didn’t have the same – agents, landlords, businesses, community, councils and chamber working together in a ‘place partnership’ or #townteam as we called it. And it’s worth emphasising here that’s not the same as a committee. I don’t believe we ever had all the players in Wantage one room, but they were (largely) on the same page.

Other factors:
🪜 a town centre-wide #popupshop project;

• a local charitable group that took on a long-derelict unit and turned it into a #community hub which is still there today;
  🛍️ an arcade of 3 large units which split them and used spare space to create a 12-small-unit community of independent businesses, a number of which went on to take bigger / more prominent town centre spaces – in other words the town’s own #indie incubator;
  🎸 plus an ongoing campaign to improve the look of buildings, planting, a weekly ‘presents’ volunteer-for-charity music performance in the market place, arts & crafts window displays, promotion via traditional and social media & more.

What did I forget…?

🥇As well as the impact on vacancy and adding to the mix of uses (a bookshop, sports shop, toy shop, makers collective, record shop, antiques were among the arrivals), it helped the town win a Great British High Streets Award and taught us a lot that we’ve since taken to other places and continue to…

🙏 Thank you Wantage…!

As a Ps it’s worth saying that this town didn’t and still doesn’t have a BID but they’ve been crucial in a number of #TheVacantShopsAcademy locations we’ve worked since.

Seems like a question that’s a long way from our typical threads on tackling #highstreet vacancy.

🚽 But around half of the ‘next steps’ narratives we share with #TheVacantShopsAcademy locations we’re working with on that issue are less directly about measures related to the empty units themselves and more about #placemaking: street scene, furniture, #streetart, toilets, signage, wayfinding, events, promotion and the like.

🔑 It’s part of an exercise we try where we’ll take the local team to look at an empty unit and ask them to list all the things an agent or landlord should do to get it let. Then ask them to turn round, back to the unit and look out and list all the things they see with that perspective which make it harder to find an occupier – issues the ‘place’ working together could fix.

Benches are often on the list. Look tatty, put people off sitting on them, droppings and litter magnets.

🔧 Actually I could’ve started the post with the same question about utility boxes or bins or bollards, phone boxes, notice boards & more. Are all those in your place looking the best they can be…? If not, which of your neighbour places has found a way to get it done…?

So budgets are tight, we’ve other priorities, we don’t have the staff now. But we need find a way – it makes a huge difference to pride in place, footfall, dwell time, inspiring ambassadors for your town or city centre and return visits, inward investment and of course vacancy.

🤔 Or is it just me…?

“I love mushroom omelette.

🍄‍🟫 Oh look, someone’s given us mushrooms in the King’s Speech.

🥚 But wait… no eggs or milk…?

Guess we’ll just have to manage with fried mushrooms then.

☹️ I like that too but… Pity.”

👨‍🍳 With apologies for all those who tuned in for a tackling #highstreet vacancy thread and think they’ve found themselves in the middle of a cooking show…

…but I’m just trying to come up with words to describe how I feel about the ‘King’s Speech’ from a town and city centres perspective.

🙃 Don’t get me wrong, mention of a ‘#community right to buy’ is welcome but it seems odd to introduce solo, without the other elements of a tackling vacancy approach.

Now you could just dismiss me as empty shops guy grumpy cos only one of the 11 elements of our #TheVacantShopsAcademy #HighstreetsManifesto made it (go on then, say so…😉)

…but I honestly believe that #placemaking experience shows you need all those elements to make a real impact, not least the top one:

“Ask (and resource) every local authority to report on vacancy numbers twice a year, and work with #property agents, landlords, businesses, community and BID where there is one to overcome barriers to let…”

⏳ So I guess we wait now.

After all, even a trainee chef knows you can’t make an omelette without…

🤔 Or am I wrong. Please say.

Are you involved as a whole place in getting large former department stores back into use…?

⏳ How many of your town and city centres still have them vacant after 2, 3 or more years…?

Asking as it’s at the heart of the issue in a number of recent locations to sign up to #TheVacantShopsAcademy tackling #highstreet vacancy approach, and we’ve been looking carefully at options.

• Some will re-let to #retail;

🏢 Others repurposed to alternative uses including education or leisure;

• There’ll be those that are split up either to create a set of smaller ground floor units or separate off the uppers;

🪜 We’re seeing examples of ‘meanwhile… use’ like Sparks Bristol;

• And frustratingly there are those just sitting there, deteriorating, and bad for pride in place, inward investment and existing trade.

🤔 What I’m really keen to understand is WHO is involved. Is it just an agents-landlords thing where you are…?

Are the local council(s) or BID where there is one, existing businesses, your community, cultural groups and organisations taking an active part in the conversation…?

🗝️ I’m wondering if in the cases they are the re-let / re-purposing moves quicker or produces results that are more welcome for the place.

Would love to hear examples and experiences from #property and #placemaking colleagues. Do chip in…!

Nationally the headline ‘empty shops’ vacancy rate is around 14%.

📉 Could the new Levelling Up team set as a target to drop that into single figures…?

I believe so. We know how to do this.

🗝️ A starting point is for all the places with empty unit rates in the mid-high teens and especially those over 20% to get a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ on the case.

It’s why our number one #HighstreetsManifesto suggestion was:

“Ask (and resource) every local authority to report on vacancy numbers twice a year, and work with agents, landlords, businesses, community and BID where there is one to overcome barriers to let…”

It’d be awesome to hear a new High Streets Minister commit to that.

☹️ Empty units do sooooo much harm to our town and city centres: on pride in place, reputation, footfall, investment and environment.

There’s a long list of reasons why they’re like that but also as many proven ways the place can start to fix it.

🎨 …and we’ve a much longer list now of go-to options to fill the spaces: arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, leisure, education, health & wellbeing alongside #retail, #hospitality & services plus office and resi (mostly) for upper floors.

We know that places can cut their #highstreet empty shops rate in half or better in 18 months. Some will drop it to churn level (under 5%).

🤳🏽 If vacancy is a troubling issue in your place, we’ll happily talk you thru it…!

Awesome week out & about #highstreet #placemaking.

💡 Four very different places so intriguing to see the common ground and how much the local teams could share.

Our #TheVacantShopsAcademy focus on reducing empty shops numbers is one of those – tho in each case this week it’s less about significant numbers of vacant units, and more that they have some tricky, often long-time empties to tackle.

🤔 That’s why we’ve introduced a new option – a version of our tackling vacancy approach for smaller locations or those with only a few but challenging units. It’s been good to start to pilot that in town and city centres and we very much hope it’ll be of interest to others with the same vacancy profile. Do get in touch if that’s you.

Another theme of the week is how much measures beyond those directly related to reducing vacancy and improving the mix of uses can contribute.

🎨 #streetart, sculptures, murals and the like;

• wayfinding, signage, street scene, furniture, bins & benches etc.;

🎡 events, markets and other activations;

• promotion of businesses and organisations you have already, those incoming, and the empty units as opportunities for others to join them.

💡 As ever we’ve learned a huge amount. Thanks Putney, Stratford-upon-Avon, Alcester, Southam…!