Let’s be really ambitious about the role schools and colleges can play in helping tackle vacancy in our town and city centres.
We should maybe agree at the outset that it’s challenging: limitations on staff time plus curriculum and exam commitments are going to need overcoming.
But…
It’s easy to see how young people can play a positive role in the wider #placemaking elements of our #TheVacantShopsAcademy projects:
+ Helping design and paint #streetart installations;
+ Gardening clubs taking on #highstreet planting initiatives;
+ Drawing on creative and performance skills to activate public spaces.
What would be amazing tho would be to go beyond that and see education organisations actually take on vacant units, maybe as community hubs for parent engagement or inter generational learning, as extra classrooms or as a showcase for arts & crafts, creative, hospitality, hairdressing and other talents.
Where it’s a college with design, engineering or trades skills courses they could also play a part in getting the empty units into shape.
It would also help your place tap into the huge resource that is the parents network and also of alumni.
What have I missed…?
As I say, it’s far from straightforward but would love to hear examples…
