The Vacant Shops Academy

Hugely cheering to see a town centre I’ve been visiting since the mid-1980’s and which means a lot to me, looking and seeming so well…

As always when you’re somewhere to walk-see rather than work, it’s important to emphasise that you may be missing something and that local residents or #highstreet businesses could have a different perspective…

…and to recognise that being there on a bright, blue, sunny day makes a difference.

But all that said it was really encouraging to spend a few days in Cromer.

If you don’t know it. Seaside town, with a pier that has its own show entertainment venue; famous for its fishing industry (“Cromer Crab”) and an important RNLI post with its own history plus, a short walk from the front, a town centre that mixes a resident and visitor #retail, #hospitality and services offer with one or two more recent additions alongside the long-established. In addition, the scenery here has sparked a creative community whose art & crafts talent is on display in many of the shops and venues.

So if you’re in that part of the world, 100% give Cromer a look…!

“Get the keys. Go take a look inside, as a team.”

It’s an answer I gave when asked this week by a group of place leaders and managers about two large, long-time empty units in their town centre.

The idea that tackling #highstreet vacancy is much more than “just an agent-landlord thing” is a crucial part of our approach.

Getting a ‘place partnership’ on the case to bring together agents and landlords with businesses, community, cultural organisations, council(s), chamber, BID where there is one and others identified locally is an important first step.

It means you have a much wider range of skills, experience, connections, resources and powers in play which can be invaluable, especially when it comes to the trickier units.

By taking a look inside with council planners, conservation officers, building control / standards and private sector architects, developers, commercial #property agents, it’s easier to see the options, assess barriers then work out how they can be overcome, and which partners need step up to make that happen.

It works for any kind of empty unit but particularly for the landmark, sometimes #heritage former department or large #retail brand stores and ex-banks.

If – as very many of the 39 places we’re working with and those we visit do – that’s an issue for your town or city centre, we’d be very happy to talk through the approach in more detail.

Do let us know…

Castle walls, heritage buildings, historic figures remembered, striking views.

How much do any or all of those play a part in your tackling #highstreet vacancy project…?

It’d be great to hear examples from your town or city centre.

Those four may not seem obvious candidates. But if they attract visitors in (footfall), become a reason for staying longer (dwell time) and inspire you to recommend a visit to others (‘promote’) then…

It’s a conversation sparked out & about in the second of the latest three towns we’ve added to those we’re working with – Carmarthen.

It – as the image set shows – has all of the above as well as a sizeable brand and indie #retail offer with recent and imminent additions; a 60-stall, long-established indoor market, a cinema and theatre, varied hotel options, a number of pedestrianised sections offering chance to sit a-while; a set of community uses taking space with innovative uses; and underway, a major former store redevelopment that will soon add much to the mix including health, wellbeing and leisure (of which more in a future post).

Lots to like. Very well worth a visit and opportunities to be part of it for businesses and organisations interested in taking on one of the vacants it does have now.

It’s one of a number of towns among the 39 we’re involved with at this stage of a #placemaking journey.

So back to the question. Castle walls, heritage buildings, historic figures remembered, striking views. Who has one or more of those prominent in your tackling vacancy strategy…?

Let’s not allow any empty units we have in our town or city centres to dominate the narrative.

Places where vacancy is an issue often find that’s the talk of local social media rather than the great businesses and organisations you do have.

For sure have a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ getting to grips with the issue but – as Laura Harris emphasises in her brilliant campaign – be sure to shout about your #HighStreetPositives 

After all, even if your vacancy rate is in the high teens or over 20%. Three quarters or more of the total are still occupied.

It’s one of the reasons ‘promote’ is the fourth element of our #TheVacantShopsAcademy approach along with ‘audit, engage, encourage’, and why existing town and city centre businesses have a big part to play in your tackling #highstreet vacancy project…

+ While shops and venues will sometimes close for understandable / unavoidable reasons, when you’re working to attract new occupiers into empty units, doing what you can to minimise departures helps;

+ Your existing businesses may well also be a great source of insights on possible new occupiers, maybe they’d like to take a second unit themselves to expand or do something different;

+ they may have contacts in other places who’d add to the mix in yours;

+ they’ll be an important part of the conversation about what’s missing and what types of uses to go for;

and they can be a good sounding board for potential other measures like a popup / ‘meanwhile… use’ project, tackling vacancy / shop front grant scheme or business support initiative.

It’d be great to hear from #placemaking colleagues who are already engaging existing businesses in this aspect of your work.

If your town or city centre is changing significantly and quickly, it makes a big difference to your approach to tackling vacancy.

It’s one of a range of reasons we ought to be very cautious about publishing league tables of empty shops rates.

The change you’re seeing might be a variety of development and repurposing projects or infrastructure / public realm initiatives or a combination of the two…

…but it for sure is going to mean the ‘next steps’ your ‘place partnership’ takes to reduce the number of empty units and improve the mix of uses will need adjusting.

Why…?

Firstly you might need to see how any development shakes out before getting a clear picture of the types of businesses and organisations you’d best attract;

Also you’ll likely find that property owners prefer to wait before committing to longer lease agreements, same with would-be occupiers who may also be keen to avoid opening if there’ll be disruption during any works programme.

This suggests, for example, that you might have to prioritise a short term let / #popupshop / ‘meanwhile… use’ approach to getting units back in play for a year or two or more.

One thing that is key though is to be doing what you can to support existing valued businesses through the change period, especially if it’ll have an impact on the look, feel, access to and operation of your #highstreet for weeks or months or longer.

It’s a scenario we see in different places on our travels – Sunderland, Grimsby, Bradford might be recent #Evolving examples…

…and it felt like an important part of the conversation in Llanelli this week. It’s a town centre with lots to like – as the image set shows – including an impressive set of buildings, some tied to its history and heritage, a strong and attractive group of independent businesses and, crucially for this thread of thinking, much happening with more in the pipeline.

We’re really looking forward to working with the Carmarthenshire County Council town centres team here and in Carmarthen and Ammanford which we’ll visit next.

It’d be really interesting to hear from #placemaking colleagues in other locations that are at a similar stage in their journey…

Busy and exciting start to August ahead…!

Really looking forward to taking our ‘audit, engage, encourage, promote’ approach to tackling #highstreet vacancy into three new locations.

We start this week working with the town centres team at Carmarthenshire County Council which will take us to Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford.

Then mid-month we’re back to check in with colleagues on Crewe town centre – a place that’s seeing intriguing progress on getting its empty units back in play.

Our August ‘24 ‘audit’ there logged a high teens percentage vacancy but in the year since:

There’ve been a number of new openings – the latest of them this weekend;

• Word from agents is that #retail, #hospitality and community uses are looking to deliver more of those before the 2025 lettings season is through;

And – perhaps most significantly of all – there’s now been progress on the five largest empty non-shopping centre buildings: one with work well underway to re-purpose its upper floors, two more in planning for the same, and the last of the set both having recently changed ownership via auction so we’re watching closely how that impacts efforts to get them occupied.

With a number of other major developments and public realm improvements in and around the town centre starting to come on stream and the ‘Repurposing our High Streets’ / Open in Crewe grant scheme continuing to make a difference to the business case for would-be occupiers, it’s little wonder one of the private investors involved here said this week:

“It’s truly exciting times for Crewe and we are delighted to be playing our part.”

It’ll be great to catch up during our visit on all that’s occurring there.

So as we get towards the typically full-on run to Christmas in the ‘25 lettings season, it’d be interesting to hear if your place is seeing #HighStreetPositives too…?

Our town and city centres need more green spaces just so we can sit and rest a while.

It’d be great to hear from #placemaking colleagues on here about favourite examples where you live or work.

I mean a quiet spot where you can just sit and think or read or listen (on headphones) to music or a favourite podcast or whatever. Away from the bustle.

Maybe strangely the idea for this post came to me on a recent visit to London.

Arrive by train, cross the super busy, traffic-filled Marylebone Road, turn right after a short walk onto Marylebone High Street and you find just such a spot (see the image set) sheltered by trees, dotted with planting and quiet. A garden of rest. Quiet anywhere but especially so in a full on city.

I’ve probably not captured it as well as I could’ve because I wanted try and avoid images that included those taking the chance to stop who were, like me, sitting on one of its benches.

Raise this issue in conversation with place leaders and managers and you’ll typically get enthusiasm to have more such #highstreet spaces, quickly followed by a list of challenges to making it happen. Not least the opportunity cost of getting zero revenue from such a valuable bit of real estate, protecting it from anti-social behaviour, the cost of upkeep and maintenance and so on.

It’d be really interesting to hear what you think. Can we make more of these in our places…? If so. How…?

Tackling vacancy in your town or city centre might be like getting a former department store, now-empty big brand shop or ex-bank back in use…

…the answer may be splitting it up.

It’s an approach we’ve turned to in a number of the 36 locations we’re supporting through #TheVacantShopsAcademy, where one, two or more sections of the centre have varying vacancy levels, a different mix of uses and so challenges and opportunities that aren’t all the same.

Looking back it’s something we first drew on in Oxford city centre management days while working on its vision and action plan process.

One city centre and, by comparison with others, not one with a huge footprint, but within that, several distinct areas. Some had a cluster of vacant units. Several have attractions, historic / heritage features and street scene that give a clue to opportunities going forward. Within the whole there are different mixes of #retail, #hospitality, services or ‘alternative’ uses that create options for branding, promotion and targeting new tenants if empty units emerge.

Is it the same with your town or city centre…? Do you need a number of tackling #highstreet vacancy strategies rather than one…? It’d be interesting to hear.

I don’t know the vacancy numbers or back story now as well as I did in those days, but as it’s our nearest city, still visit Oxford often. One of the fascinating lessons has been to watch agents and landlords adjusting the mix on its actual High Street and attracting – as our image shows – new occupiers to take account of the changing citywide balance of shopping here.

How often are you in a town or city centre and see an empty unit (or more) looking terrible…?

Mishmash of rough looking boarding, broken glass, windows whitewashed or part covered in flyers on the outer or peeling brown paper inside, woodwork failing, window frames peeling, branches and bushes growing where they shouldn’t.

Dragging down perceptions of the place, feeding negative media stories, dissuading potential customers from visiting and dwelling, making things harder for existing #highstreet businesses.

To be fair, in lots of places now council teams, BIDs, agents and community groups are on the case, tidying up the worst examples, vinyling, creating attractive window displays and the like.

So today to give a shout out to the volunteers for Our Union Street in Aberdeen who – with proactive support from local #property agents – are building an impressive portfolio of empty units they’ve tidied up.

Our main images showcase their latest project, 23 Union Street, the former Tourist Information Office. As David White, who kindly gave us a heads up on this, says:

“We converted this empty unit on Union Street to promote the “Tall Ships Race”. Our volunteers cleaned the unit inside and out and filled it with a number of exhibitions.”

So here’s to the Street Union volunteers and all those in town and city centres who are doing similar.

It’d be great to hear of other examples…