Member News
The government on Tuesday urged communities to use vacant shops as neighbourhood resources to prevent the recession turning high streets into magnets for crime.
On a visit to Stockport, communities secretary Hazel Blears announced measures for local groups to use vacant stores and prevent them turning into 'ghost towns'.
Joined by culture secretary Andy Burnham, Blears briefed a seminar of councils, business leaders, landlords and town centre mangers on the government plans.
The proposals include injecting £3m in funding for innovative schemes, faster planning procedures and standard short term leases.
Blears said: "Town centres are the heartbeat of every community and businesses are the foundation so it is vital that they remain vibrant places for people to meet and shop throughout the downturn.
"Empty shops can be eyesores or crime magnets.
"Our ideas for reviving town centres will give communities the know how to temporarily transform vacant premises into something innovative for the community - a social enterprise, a showroom for local artists or an information centre - and stop the High Street being boarded up."
Chairwoman of the Local Government Association, Margaret Eaton, welcomed the proposals.
But she emphasised that the top priority should be finding commercial tenants to move into empty premises.
"Rows of boarded-up shops are a sad reflection of the recession the country is mired in," she argued.
"Not only do they signal a local economy in decline, they also become a hotspot for anti-social behaviour and drag down the whole feel of an area," she said.
Eaton explained: "Where new occupants for a shop can't be found, councils need to take the lead to stop our high streets sliding into decline. The millions of pounds spent resuscitating this country's town centres must not go to waste during these bad times."
Caroline Spelman, shadow communities secretary added: "We should take no lessons from Labour ministers given Gordon Brown has worsened the misery for local firms by hiking business rates during the recession, including scrapping rate relief on empty property.
"Worse is to come in the form of the rates revaluation next April. New planning rules in favour of more out-of-town development will soon make it even worse for high street shops."
But the British Council of Shopping Centres warned that the government measures will do little in the long term to prevent more retailers from going bust.
Executive director of the BCSC, Edward Cooke, explained: "The retail property industry is already responding by working alongside retailers to help address their fixed occupancy costs - including measures to reduce service charges, and easing cash flow by offering monthly rents."
He added: "If government is serious about preventing more empty retail property, the chancellor will be brave enough to re-introduce empty property rate relief in his Budget next week, and accelerate the process of phasing in this year's business rates increase as in three months time many more shops will have closed due to the pressures retailers are facing as a result of escalating occupancy costs and falling consumer spending."
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd