Last weekend, Steve Reed announced £301 million of funding to support ‘High Street Innovation Partnerships’. Besides the scale of the funding, the purpose of the innovation framing feels significant: to transform high streets into “mixed-use spaces with new homes, health services, libraries, community hubs and green spaces”. This signals a narrative shift towards delivering a new civic model for the high streets to replace the retail-dominated model of the past and give high streets renewed purpose – as we’ve been calling for the government’s forthcoming High Street Strategy to do.
Over the last year, Power to Change has been supporting five community businesses across England to develop new and creative solutions to the challenges facing their high streets. They have explored how to build effective local partnerships, access empty spaces for community use and resolve questions of who the high street is run for and by. Crucially, they are building authentic momentum for change and bringing about the mixed-use civic model for the high street that the government’s announcement speaks to.
By supporting community businesses to test new approaches and learning alongside them, we are developing salient insights to inform the government’s approach to high streets – including its forthcoming High Streets Strategy and the new High Street Innovation Partnerships. In the coming months, we’ll be publishing a full learning report for Community Led High Street Innovators, but here are three insights to shape how the government can prompt innovative responses to high street challenges, enable community-led regeneration to flourish and realise the civic high streets of the future.
Lessons from community-led innovation
Shaping an authentic and inclusive vision for the future high street
The High Street Innovators are using their deep local roots and accountability to build legitimacy, trust and buy-in from local residents and businesses for high street regeneration. They are often able to engage deeply as well as broadly with local people and elevate voices that are not typically heard in formal public sector processes. High Street Innovation Partnerships should facilitate local leadership of community engagement and vision-setting, so high street regeneration is shaped in a way that genuinely reflects local needs and desires, and so that local people can feel excited and involved in what their high street is becoming – not focused on the way things used to be. Learning from the experience of Pride in Place, community leadership and participation should be built in from day one and influence shared meaningfully, to deliver a vision for the future civic high street that feels genuinely locally owned.
In Bristol, the Southmead Development Trust (SDT) has spent more than ten years consulting and planning a community-led high street extension with local residents. Their regeneration masterplan will deliver 177 affordable homes and new community spaces, and will help diversify SDT’s income so they can keep delivering for their community. Bristol City Council has been a valuable partner and supporter – providing strategic Community Infrastructure Levy funds for the development of the project and connecting SDT to registered housing providers to help them source a partner for realising this vision. Despite long development timelines, the community-led approach has enabled SDT to maintain trust and accountability of the community at each stage of the project.
Stewarding the high street through community use and ownership of assets
The High Street Innovators are occupying high street and town centre spaces in different ways to re-animate their high streets, drive footfall and test out different business ideas. Some of the innovators have used meanwhile spaces to test what works and provide proof of concept for longer-term occupation, but accessing security of tenure to make a lasting impact on the high street remains challenging. High Street Innovation Partnerships should help communities move along this stewardship pathway, from pop-ups and meanwhile use to longer leases and community ownership, enabling communities to become long-term guardians of the high street. This can be supported through scaled finance for these different types of asset use: helping communities to undertake fit-outs in temporary spaces and buy-outs of locally-valued buildings. Access to these spaces can also be supported through the effective use of existing policy powers and support for new measures like the Community Right to Buy.
Dewsbury’s Arcade Group has exemplified the use of this stewardship pathway to activate the high street. They have agreed a 10-year lease to run the council-owned Victorian arcade, curating a locally relevant retail offer and community activities and make the arcade a catalyst for wider regeneration in Dewsbury. While renovations on the arcade have progressed slowly, the Arcade Group has effectively used a pop-up shop in a previously empty shopping centre unit as a hub for local engagement with the plans for the Arcade, and a space to test parts of the retail offer. Through UK Shared Prosperity Funding, they’ve also held a number of community events to bring people back to the town centre and hope to continue this offer with funding from the Dewsbury Neighbourhood Board. Having a 10-year lease has provided some security of tenure, enabling the Arcade Group to undertake a community share raise and to leverage additional funding into the regeneration of the arcade.
Ensuring the capacity and capability to put powers into action
The High Street Innovators have been exploring how a raft of new and existing powers can be used to help communities shape and control their high streets. Councils already have various powers to shape their high streets like rental auctions, planning powers and compulsory purchase, with new powers such as licensing to restrict vape shops and betting shops on high streets, as well as introducing the Community Right to Buy, already on their way. However, many councils struggle with a lack of expert knowledge, capacity, and legal and financial risk aversion, and do not fully utilise the powers at their disposal to unlock vacant space on high streets for civic reuse.
High Street Innovation Partnerships should see councils come together with local partners to use their powers in a targeted way, driven by local intelligence and demand to reduce risk, and with a focus on shifting to a mixed-use, civic model for the high street.
Make CIC sought to test whether High Street Rental Auctions – a power introduced just over a year ago, which enables councils to take empty properties to auction if their owners fail to rent them out – could be used to secure high street space for community use. They have researched the legislation, held a webinar to inform local councillors and officers, and connected their council with early adopter councils using the powers to share learning. While challenges around council capacity have slowed progress, Make CIC have effectively leveraged this new power to frame a broader conversation about vacancy and ownership, and push the local system towards action.
If you’re a council, community business or local regeneration partner shaping a High Street Innovation Partnership, get in touch to hear more about what we’re learning from Community-Led High Street Innovators and how community businesses can help make high street renewal more inclusive, practical and durable.
