Retailers have urged communities secretary John Denham to continue and deepen support for high street stores.
Following a pledge of £3M to regenerate Britain’s ailing high streets, the Government was warned by the British Council of Shopping Centres that although the cash was welcomed it could not help every town centre in the long-term.
The retail property industry body called for more substantial support to protect town centres from the effects of the recession.
Edward Cooke, executive director at BCSC said: ‘The blight of empty units is a serious threat to the vibrancy of our town centres and while the commitment of additional funding is welcome, £3M across 50 centres is clearly going to have a limited impact – particularly in the larger cities such as Birmingham or Bristol.
‘BCSC members have been actively pursuing innovative uses for empty units for some time – including offering stores as showrooms under short-term arrangements, as well as entering into leasing arrangements with charities and the public sector. These measures have already proven successful in many shopping areas.’
It followed the announcement by John Denham that council with 57 of the hardest hit areas will get help to find creative ways to use their empty shops and re-open them as facilities for communities.
Each council will receive a grant of more than £50,000 to use as they see fit on ideas to boost town centres and transform empty shops into something useful such as a meeting place, a learning centre or a even a showroom for local artists.
John Denham said: ‘We know that the downturn has really hurt high streets in areas of high deprivation across England. These grants will help to transform and re-open empty shops as part of our real help to keep town centres vibrant and combat the recession.
‘Those councils will now be able to use our funding to come up with their own creative ideas to transform their boarded up shops into something useful like a learning centre, meeting place for local people or showroom for local artists.
‘There is no need to see unused shops on our high streets going to waste, especially when we know that it doesn't take a lot to turn a vacant shop into something beneficial for the community.’
But Mr Cooke added: ‘If Government is serious about addressing the problem in the long term, more considered action is needed to tackle rising occupancy costs, which in turn are putting increased pressure on retailers’ cash flow and their ability to pay rents.
‘Along with other industry bodies, such as BPF and BRC, we have been calling for a turnaround on taxing empty properties for some time. In addition, we are campaigning to ensure that retailers get a fair deal from the phasing in of rate increases resulting from the April 2010 revaluation – which could see rates bills rise by as much as 15%.
’We will continue to work with Government and other industry bodies to pursue ways of moderating the effects of increasing occupancy costs on the retail property industry, as well as ways to secure the future of retail-led regeneration by considering solutions such as TIFS and ADZs, so that the long term benefits to local communities of retail property investment are realised.’
The Looking after our Town Centres guide can be found here.
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