Has the last bank left your town centre…?

Are you down to just one…?

🤔 What’s the impact…?

And if you’ve had #highstreet #bank closures what’s happening to the buildings….? Are they sitting long-time empty or back in (alternative) use…?

🎤 Looking forward to talking through all these issues at an “Invigorating the Community” building societies conference in Leeds on Monday.

As #property and #placemaking colleagues who are working on tackling vacancy will know, these units can often be tricky to get back into use:

🏢 They’re often in large, prominent buildings with frontages less suited to retail or hospitality use;

• Many are in heritage buildings which have additional re-use challenges, including empty rates relief;

💷 The outgoing banks typically pay a higher rent, and if they’ve been there a while that can be above current market rate so hard to replace;

• The requirements of banking inside mean that sorting the layout, fitout etc. can be more significant;

🗝️ Banks often leave before lease end so that the very tricky assignment process is in play to try get the unit occupied.

One encouraging development is the group of, largely #hospitality but some #retail, brands doing great work in repurposing and re-opening this kind of empty.

🗣️ It’d be great to see examples, and to hear how your town or city centre is overcoming these challenges…!

Do let us know…

🤳🏽 …the message I sent to a friend and local champion for the place of my first #highstreet out & about visit of 2024.

And it is in many ways, as the set of images below shows – just a sample of those I could’ve used to illustrate its positives.

🛍️ New openings, brand and #indie, #retail, #hospitality, services and third sector, since my previous visit.

🎨 Stunning new #streetart to add to an already strong collection.

+ Investment in hotel, office, access…

…and around the town centre and on its fringes history, heritage and always a sense of a strong community keen to play its part.

And yet some of those who read to the end and see which town I’m talking about will have a different perspective, as the clearly upset resident who strolled up to talk to me that day had.

But that’s the opportunity. This town feels like a perfect example of how the ‘alternative uses’ we often list here – arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, leisure, education, health & wellbeing – can be key to its ‘next steps’.

🔑 Same for the always crucial place partnership, bringing #property agents, landlords, businesses, community & council together to understand the vacancy backstory and barriers and focus on how they’re best overcome.

Lots to do #placemaking, but…

So here’s to: Swindon town centre.

🎥 …to borrow and adjust an old movie title.

That’s how many places we visited with #TheVacantShopsAcademy in 2023, racking up what our app reckons is a decent CO2 saving.

🤔 Where next…?

The majority of those visits were on tackling #highstreet empty shops issues commissions, plus others to catch up with #property & #placemaking colleagues, and see some new locations.

Learned a huge amount, met brilliant people, saw a lot of great projects & positive developments; ‘audit, engage’ covered no shortage of new #retail, #hospitality and alternative uses openings, and we’re on to supporting a number of places to introduce priorities from our ‘next steps’ suggestions.

🤳🏽 Now planning the first trips of 2024 with Sunderland, Rugby, Tredegar and Leeds (for the “Invigorating the Community” event with Stuart Fearn MBE) among them.

Really exciting conversations also this week with a number of place leaders and managers about vacancy challenges in their town or city centre, so hopefully…! 🤞🤞🤞

It feels like a huge year ahead for the #highstreet…

🤔 …what do you think…?

From a #TheVacantShopsAcademy perspective it’s one we very much hope will see more places – councils or BIDs where there is one or a combination of the two – recognising just how much difference they can make in tackling vacancy, prioritising the issue, and securing the capacity and resources it needs.

They’ll find much in their favour.

• We know that, by running ‘audit, engage’ and working with #property agents, landlords, businesses and community, empty shops numbers can be brought down;

🎨 with arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, leisure, education, health & wellbeing we’ve now a much wider range of options alongside #retail, #hospitality & services to look to, and an increasing number of examples to show how;

• more and more places are running impactful grant funding schemes to help overcome barriers to getting empty units back into use, so there’s good case study material to draw on;

🛍️ there’s a lengthening list of national brands with requirements lists and target locations looking to open extra stores and venues along with incoming new #indie occupiers which you can reach out to;

• the government’s High Street Rental Auctions power should launch this year giving places a potential extra tool in the toolkit against the trickier empties, and the consultation on ways to reduce business rates tax evasion & avoidance may deliver helpful adjustments too.

📉 Of course we’re still in challenging times but I’d say to places – even those with headline vacancy rates in the mid-high teens and low twenty percents – we know how to do this.

Let’s go…

So how are you going about tackling empty shops issues in your town or city centre…?

🤔 Do you need to demolish…? Will some have to be re-purposed to resi or office…? Maybe. Or might they re-let…?

🚈 We had (yet) another illustration of how the picture can change even in a short space of time on a flying – or whatever the train trip equivalent of that is – visit to Monmouth.

📉 It’s a town we’ve been running our ‘audit, engage’ approach in since the spring. By the end of summer, the number of ‘empty & available’ units was a third of the original headline vacancy figure. This weekend there are signs that even more of the initial vacants are let or getting there.

…and it’s something we’ve seen in several of our #TheVacantShopsAcademy locations.

There’s work to do here still – as in the other places. But now there’s a clearer picture, and decisions on policy and projects can be much more strongly evidence-based, and so more likely to be what’s needed…!

It’s another example of why we urge places not to try deal with vacancy on your #highstreet based on a snap shot.

Instead, run ‘audit, engage’. Check their current status with the #property agent or landlord. Understand the backstory and establish what barriers there are to them being let. Then work with agents, landlords, businesses and your community to do what you can as a place to get them back into use.

🔑 Otherwise, you risk doing the wrong thing. Reducing your stock of units for #retail, #hospitality, services or one of the lengthening list of ‘alternative uses’ – arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, leisure, education, health & wellbeing – when actually what you need do is different, and maybe even the opposite.

🗣️ We’d love to hear from places who’d like to try tackling empty shops issues this way. Please get in touch…!

Wellbeing.”

“Living Well Locally.”

“People, place, planet.”

🤔 Which words and phrases do you most relate to our work in towns and city centres…?

💭 If we’d done a ‘word cloud’ of the early sessions of the 2023 Scotland’s Towns Partnership conference in Dundee, those would be some of the ones to feature.

It was an interesting, insightful, enjoyable event, and great to be in a room with #placemakers where these themes are rated sooooo important, along with topics like net zero, town centre living, innovation, enterprise and connectivity.

💙 …and it’s all part of the holistic approach to place that’s at the heart of Scotland’s approach.

A brilliant day to top off my trip which started by catching up with the Our Union Street and Aberdeen Inspired #BID teams, and a walk-see of the city’s main street to check how things are changing since we ran ‘audit, engage’ there last autumn.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Thanks everyone.

Do you still have a large former-department store sitting empty in your #highstreet place…?

🤔 Are the discussions rolling on about re-purposing, future uses, splitting up, conversion…?

Meanwhile you’ve a big, deteriorating, wasted space creating negativity, when instead…? Meanwhile…!

✨ I was lucky enough to make a long overdue visit to the brilliant Sparks Bristol and see an illustration of what we could be doing with these vacant spaces while the thinking goes on.

Ground floor #retail, information sharing, resident engagement & more with a climate, equality, wellbeing focus. Upper floor #workspace, performance space, workshops, classes…?

💡 An inspiring example of collaboration and innovation, and one I know that council, #BID, #community and #property #placemaking friends are watching closely.

It’s very well worth a look.

Here’s a first, I think 🤔

🤳🏽 Out & about in a #highstreet location and got back with just one picture of a vacant unit in my phone library.

…and it’s not that there weren’t any others.

🎨 It was just that in Bedminster, Bristol our #placemaking attention was totally taken with the number and variety and quality of #streetart and #shutterart examples.

…which sparked 4 thoughts:

• Did they help to create the important impression that the place cares, which makes such a difference…?
• In a very practical sense the #art on lowered shutters meant you could not tell whether the unit was vacant or just not yet open. Compare that to seeing a run of blank shutters…?

🖌️ There was a lot of tagging. Typically in a town or city centre that’s seen as graffiti, anti-social behaviour. Here it blended in – at least to the visitor – and could just have been a signature on the artwork.

• And on ‘promote’ – there looks to be enough to catalogue and create a trail by map & app to bring people here just to enjoy the creativity. An added and valuable draw to benefit it’s businesses.

For council and BID colleagues thinking to add to the wall art in their places and initiate a project where they have a run of blank shutters, there’s learning for sure.

📸 Here’s just a few of scores of examples. Thanks Jason Thorne for an insightful tour.

TheVacantShopsAcademy

Should a #highstreet place, a town or city centre, have its own commercial agent…?

…like an individual empty unit has but for all the vacants in that location.

🤔 It’d be interesting to hear what #property and #placemaking colleagues think…?

The idea would be that:

• they support the agents with individual properties listed but take an overview of every vacant unit in a place and promote them all to would-be occupiers rather than just one or the small subset as happens now;
• they’d do this taking into account the current mix of uses and what’s missing, and could go out – as a place ambassador – to recruit for target types and to fill gaps;

🔐 incoming tenants, especially those like new independents or arts & crafts, creative, culture or community organisations not used to securing units, would have a helping hand;

• …and it would mean that properties which don’t have agents instructed – and this can, according to #TheVacantShopsAcademy data, be as many as 40 or 50% of them – would at least have some proactive marketing.

💷 There’s a complication I guess when it comes to the financials if the unit already has an agent, but dual-agency arrangements are out there so we know there is a way that can be worked out.

What do you think…?

“What reasons are there for optimism about our high streets…?”

🎤 It’s a question I was asked at a panel event this week, and every day since we’ve seen examples from different places that well illustrate my answer.

You could include in that just from recent threads I’ve seen:

• the ongoing ‘Our Union Street’ initiative in Aberdeen;
• 📹 a mayor – council collaboration in Barnsley town centre showcased in a new video;
• Grimsby’s 2025 Group;
• 💡 Sparks Bristol;
• Dolphin Shopping Centre, Poole;
• the latest update by Gainsborough’s Townscape Heritage Initiative.

…and more, no doubt. Case studies that #placemaking and #property colleagues would add.

My actual response at the forum in South Gloucestershire, which is one of our #TheVacantShopsAcademy locations that have had and are beginning work on delivering elements of their ‘next steps’, started with this:

“The strongest reason for optimism here is that you’re on the case.” 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

One of the (many) really frustrating things about the ‘death of the…’ narrative is that it’s swamping sooooo much good, proactive, partnership working and projects that are making a difference in our town and city centres.

🫣 True, we are still seeing places that aren’t yet underway because of other priorities, lack of capacity or funding, or in some cases a belief that tackling vacancy “is just an agent-landlords thing”. And if you don’t start a journey…

But still.

🤔 What are your reasons for #highstreet optimism…?