Community ownership key to ‘levelling up’ Britain’s high streets
HIP summarises a new report commissioned by Power to Change, Community Businesses and High Streets: ‘Taking Back’ and Leading Forward which shines a light on the need for Britain to support community ownership and self-organisation.
Community Networks
According to the report, comm-unity businesses are already essential to high street regener-ation. They prove more adaptive and more in-tune with local requirements than traditional retail models. By contrast, brands and chain stores are being diminished and replaced by the convenience and wide range of digital sales.
The report, from the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University, found that community businesses: support new and emerging forms of economic activity; can slow down or prevent gentrification; and create support networks for themselves and other businesses. In short, they make the conditions that allow high street revitalisation.
Recent research by Power to Change and the Local Data Company found that a record 16 per cent of shops on Britain’s high streets stand empty, and 1/20 vacant units have been shuttered up for more than three years.
Long-term Growth
The future of the high street is a persistent challenge that has unfolded in the UK over several decades and so won’t be fixed by short-term solutions. High streets face complex and knotty obstacles: changing retail trends; dysfunctional property ownership; the erosion of local government; changing patterns of consumption; digital transformation; and climate risks.
A community-led high street is a central element of the solution to these challenges.
“We need this radical action now to ensure our much loved community spaces thrive and survive“
Nick Plumb
Community-owned spaces contribute £220m to the UK economy, and 56p of every £1 they spend stays in the local economy, compared with just 40p for large private sector firms. Where there is community ownership on a high street, vacancy rates are reduced. Community shops tend to provide affordable, appropriate services and products for the community and they more nimbly meet shifting local demand than the traditional model high street store.
The Community Businesses and High Streets report recommends that Government regenerate our high streets by acting in four areas. It should:
• prioritise use value over land value in regeneration schemes
• incentivise partnership rather than competition – long term finance, awarded at least in part on the depth of co-operation involved, needs to become the norm
• support revenue spending as well as capital programmes – investing in places begins with investing in people
• And start to address long-term challenges such as local government finance and property law – these cannot be repaired on an ad-hoc and piecemeal basis.
New Buyout Fund
Nick Plumb, Policy Manager at Power to Change says: “High streets were once the beating hearts of our local communities, but the growth of out-of-town retail; the rise of megastores; a seismic shift towards online shopping; and more recently a cost-of-living crisis has left them vulnerable. This report makes clear what we know: that greater community ownership and involvement in the high street will push back against these worrying trends.”
So, his organisation is calling for a new £350 million High Street Buyout Fund that will help local communities secure property to create a new, diversified high street that puts community in the driving seat. The fund will be designed to act quickly to purchase empty, important buildings, holding them until communities have the funds and structure to run the building long-term. It is specifically calling on government to invest £100 million of Levelling Up Fund money to help capitalise the fund.
• Find the report on www.powertochange.org.uk
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