The Vacant Shops Academy

4 new openings this year on a single town centre street…

…is just one of the encouraging stories emerging from locations we’re working with on tackling #highstreet vacancy.

What’s new from independents in your town or city centre. It’d be great to hear…!

The 4 story is from Tredegar (pictured is one of those, Honey Bea Art Gallery).

There’s also…

• A yarn-store, community space and knitting resource opening in Abertillery on Saturday; 
  
  
• A bar / restaurant with live music on the weekends gearing up to open in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire;
  
  
• A new sushi bar opening in Crewe town centre on Sunday;
  
  
• …adding to neighbouring indies launching in Llanelli town centre (one just before, Christmas, one just after), a second-hand bookshop & cafe just opened in Dunfermline and before long a new Turkish Restaurant & Cafe for Stirling city centre.

And there’ll be more.

As we always say, it’s challenging still and there’s much to do but – especially considering it’s still very early in the 2026 lettings season – there are #HighStreetPositives too.

So a good moment to say huge credit to the owners of all these new businesses and their teams for the ideas and investment and energy they’re devoting.

And to finish – hoping she won’t mind – I wanted to share these words from a post by the owner of Janna’s Bakery in Stirling who’s also behind that new opening there:

“A new chapter. A step forward. A moment I wanted to pause and take in. This journey hasn’t been easy, but it has been full of lessons, growth, and incredible support. I feel very grateful and very proud of how far I’ve come — and excited for what’s ahead.”

But I think I’m okay to go walk-see Banbury town centre.

It’s a place that I’ve always thought has a huge amount going for it: heritage buildings, a sizeable independents group, lots of pedestrianised space, proactive shopping centre team, the award-winning Lock29 destination, canal with a developing leisure offer on both sides, a sprinkling of uses from our ‘alternative’ / additional list taking up units, and more.

Personally it’s also been a significant part of my own journey and taught me a lot, including town team time and a short BID interim.

It has all the players you need for a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ too – agents, landlords, businesses, community, cultural organisations, councils, chamber, BID – but I’m wondering if they are all working closely together on this issue.

As I’ll often say, it’s really hard to tell from just a walk see, without taking time to investigate the back story of each empty unit, exactly what the picture is.

Visibly the headline vacancy rate looks to be in the mid / low teens percent, but it has some landmark buildings and long-time empties it’d be great to see back in play and lots positive to offer as a place to would-be new occupiers that makes me think getting the numbers down is do-able with a concerted, collaborative effort.

Does that describe your town or city centre too…? Do you have more empty units than you’d like…? Are residents and existing businesses unhappy with the changing mix of uses…?

It’d be good to hear from you…

What would you change…?

With the government promising to publish a ‘High Streets Strategy’ later this year, I thought to share again the tackling #highstreet vacancy-focused ‘manifesto’ I drew up in May ‘24 in the run up to that year’s election.

The aim is to deliver the policy and regulation adjusts that will help places try halve their headline vacancy rate and drop the long-stuck national empties percentage into single figures.

I know there are elements of what follows that #property and #placemaking colleagues disagree on.

It’d be great to hear what you think…

So here goes…!

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

Give them scope to override national use class guidance and permitted development rules in line with local priorities;

• Create new powers to end business rates avoidance and evasion and allow flexibility to incentivise tackling vacancy eg around thresholds, ‘fit to occupy’, listed building charity (and CIC) and second unit reliefs;

Strengthen (and resource) regulations to enforce minimum ‘fit to occupy’ standards on all highstreet buildings;

• Sweep away the additional letting requirements on councils when they are landlords so that local authorities are all beacons of good practice;

Require every vacant highstreet unit to be marketed with a registered agent and the place to have a publicly available empty & available units listing;

• Change the process which keep units empty when the previous tenant went into administration or left with time to go on their lease;

Build funds to support community right to buy including the co-ordination and property skills to make it happen and be sustainable;

• Develop a series of popup use projects leading to longer pilots based on successful examples for arts & crafts, culture, creative and community uses;

Mandate all NHS Trusts to work with their places to develop accessible first contact & diagnostic services in town & city centres;

• Encourage and resource places to ‘audit’ and develop strategies to reduce un- and under-used space on upper floors of vacant and occupied units.

What would you add / adjust…?

Let’s get places to try halve their headline vacancy rate and drop the long-stuck national empties percentage into single figures.

Reading that the government is planning to publish a ‘High Streets Strategy’ later this year, I thought to table again the top item on my tackling #highstreet vacancy ‘manifesto’…

“Ask (and resource) every local authority to report on vacancy numbers twice a year, and work with agents, landlords, businesses, community, cultural organisations, chamber and BID where there is one plus others identified locally, to help overcome barriers to getting empty units let…”

We’ve had no luck getting that yet, but if at first you don’t succeed…

And why, if you were government, wouldn’t you do it…?

We know the approach works. Places started doing it a dozen or so years ago, more are now and seeing chunks come out of their empty units numbers.

It’d be good for growth, create jobs, deliver revenue to councils, contribute to increasing housing availability, help with health improvement targets and with sustainability, boost ‘pride in place’ and much more. A whole raft of local and national government objectives supported with one measure.

It’s also – and I guess I would say this – a much more cost effective approach than some of the big ticket spend things we’ve tried in recent years.

I get that there are accompanying policy and regulation adjusts we’d need too, but as I’ve said, the prize is to see a lengthy list of town and city centres halve their headline vacancy rate in 18 months as well as improve the mix of uses there.

Nationally that’s going to cut the overall rate from the 13.5–14% it’s been at for ages, into – if enough places get on the case – single figures.

Anyone think that’s a plan…? Or want to tell me why not…?

It’d be great to hear from you.

I’ve started wondering if we should maybe switch how we think about it…?

To explain first, it’s a phrase being used to describe people answering #highstreet surveys, commenting in the press and posting on social media about how their town or city centre “isn’t what it used to be”.

When that happens it’s often a result of the fact that many #retail businesses having moved out-of-town or closed altogether, or that we’re now shopping more online than “back then”.

And as placemakers and #property people we’re used to responding by saying that’s how it is, that things are changing, and we cannot go back. That people are hankering after a past that’s gone, not to return and it’s not helpful (hence the ‘negative’ bit).

But is that right…?

Isn’t what’s actually being said here just that people want “more shops” in their town or city centre.

So if that’s what they’re saying, why don’t we just try deliver that…?

To be clear, I’m not advocating a return to clone towns. There are reasons why that was flawed too. I also recognise that one of the very positive changes we’re seeing is that more places are thinking arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, history & heritage, leisure, education, health and health & wellbeing as go-to options to fill empty units – indeed that’s at the heart of the tackling vacancy strategy we’re encouraging locations we support on this issue to consider.

But we say also that retail (and #hospitality) still has a big part to play.

So why, next time we hear residents and existing businesses ask for “more shops”, don’t we try to make exactly that happen.

Thoughts…?

…or why it’s so valuable for places working on tackling #highstreet vacancy to take a team inside empty units to work out how to get them back in use.

That’ll be the focus of the next in our series of guides and briefing notes, hoping they help local teams working on reducing the number of empty units and improving the mix of uses in their town or city centre.

Do let us know if you’re in a local council or BID team focused on this issue and would like a copy of this or one of the others.

They focus on arts & crafts, creative, culture and health & wellbeing as potential go-to uses for vacants, the power of community and business-led clean up operations, and ‘vinyling’ those long-term empties that are looking less than their best.

The latest draws on our experience down the years of getting inside empty units – especially the larger ones that have been like that for a while.

Our approach is to bring together a team of public and private sector specialists – council planners and building control/standards plus conservation officers (depending on the type of unit) with commercial architects, developers, #property agents and cultural organisation representatives – to go see.

Once inside the idea is they assess potential occupier options, barriers to getting the unit used again and how they can be overcome, and importantly, which stakeholders need step up to help make that happen. They can then feedback to the landlord and, if policy or regulation adjusts might help, to the wider ‘place partnership’ and on to government.

Our friends at Aberdeen Inspired are leading on some great pathfinding work around this approach as part of their award-winning Union Street upper floors project, and we’ll share insights from that in the guide.

If you’re running a similar team-based project getting inside vacant units in your place it’d be great to hear from you too…

Your town or city centre’s headline vacancy rate is almost exactly the national average – that’s quoted as 13.5%.

So what could you realistically set as a target looking ahead…?

It’s a very practical question I’ve been asked this week having been drafting ‘next steps’ for one of the locations we’re working with on tackling #highstreet vacancy.

Among the key features of the approach are:

• have a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ on the case;
• “get the keys” and put together a combined council / private sector team to go inside priority empty units to work out how to get them back in use;
• explore opportunities to encourage businesses or organisations from our list of ‘alternative’ / additional use types to take on spaces;
• make sure your place – buildings, public realm, street furniture etc – all look the very best they can.

There’s more but those are some of the fundamental elements.

With those happening our answer to the question for places currently in the early / mid teens percents would be: “aim to get your headline vacancy rate into single figures within 18 months”.

Based on experience, I’d be confident you can. You should also be able to improve the mix of uses if your residents and existing businesses are getting concerned about how things are changing – maybe away from #retail and #hospitality – with vacants being let to things they’re not really welcoming.

So thinking about your town or city centre. Could you hit that target…? Are you going to…?

It’d be great to hear…

It’s a large, prominent but now long-empty unit in your town centre, and it’s starting show the signs of that too. Paint peeling, partly boarded up, greenery sprouting around the windows.

Got one like that or more…?

So what are you doing about it as a place.

I’ve spent part of this week working with a number of the locations we’re supporting around tackling #highstreet vacancy on what we call their ‘target units’…

…empties they have that look to be a priority for getting back in to play.

So what’s the plan…?

First is “get the keys” and take a ‘place partnership’ team inside to work out occupier options, the barriers to getting the unit back into play and how they can be overcome, and importantly which of the partners needs step up to make that happen.

It might be splitting the ground floor into smaller units, separating off the uppers if it’s multi-floor, starting its journey back by organising a short term, pop-up shop let or, if it’s in too poor a way for that, at least making it look better with a frontage refurb, vinyling or similar.

It’s all part of our core message that reducing the number of empty units you have and improving the mix of uses isn’t “just an agent-landlord thing”, and that the place, working together, can take chunks out of its headline vacancy rate.

It’d be great to hear from #placemaking or #property colleagues on how you’re getting any landmark empties in your town or city centre back into play. Or to hear from you if you’re stuck with one or more.

Do let us know…

“Across the country, 13.5% of shops stand empty, the lowest vacancy rate since 2020, with a further drop expected next year.”

That’s a line from one press story this week.

Now I get that a single positive national media article doesn’t a switch of narrative make…

…but I wanted to share in case you missed it, especially headed as we are into a month when the glooming tends to be at its heaviest.

I recognise that the #highstreet still has its challenges and that we’ve much to do yet.

…and I understand that the study this article was based on will typically be outnumbered in the days and weeks ahead by gloomier ones.

Also, as I’ve already had pointed out, some of the data that’s made for its upbeat take will be around shopping centres and even out-of-town retail parks.

…and that single national average headline rate may not match the figure or direction of travel for your town or city centre.

But still (and here’s another quote from it)…

‘Will Lund, the head of retail capital markets at Knight Frank, said: “With online penetration flatlining and retailers reinvesting in physical space, the narrative around #retail has fundamentally changed. We have great confidence that this demand is going to drive a return to decade-high investment volumes in 2026 and we are expecting a busy year.”’

I’ve long said that, with all the work being done by local #placemaking and property teams, the focus on tackling vacancy in an increasing number of places, the lengthening list of national and international brands opening new stores and venues, and the pick up of the idea that ‘alternative’ / additional uses: arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, history & heritage, leisure, education, health and health & wellbeing can be go-to candidates for empty spaces, the average headline vacancy rate was going to fall.

If we can persuade the government to: “Ask (and resource) every local authority to report on vacancy numbers twice a year, and work with agents, landlords, businesses, community, cultural organisations, chamber and BID where there is one to overcome barriers to let…” I believe we can get it down further, quicker. Hopefully into single figures.

It’d be great to hear how you see things…?

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…!