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| | | | 11/11/2015 | The Grocer, Ian Quinn - Healthy High Streets scheme "has cut number of vacant shops" | | | | | Healthy High Streets scheme makes a difference in first year | | | | | The Grocer reports that a £9.4m rescue programme funded by a group of the UK's leading retailers has helped cut the number of vacant shops in some of the UK's most deprived towns.
Figures released by the charity Business in the Community (BITC) claim the Healthy High Streets scheme, which launched a year ago and is backed by retailers including Boots, the Co-operative Group, Greggs and Marks & Spencer, has also helped create nearly 2,000 new jobs.
Towns involved in the project, which received support from High Street Champions from sponsoring businesses and helped to devise local action plans to address specific challenges, reported a 5% drop in empty units since the start of the programme.
This compares with the national average in which vacant units decreased from 12% to 11.7%.
The figures, which cover the first 33 of a total of 100 towns that will be supported in the three-year project, also show footfall has also improved slightly, by 0.4%, compared with a national decline of 0.4%.
Examples of successful projects in the towns included Stockton, where free parking after 3pm was introduced during Christmas 2014 trading. This turned into a year-round "first hour free" scheme.
Trafford Council offered businesses and property owners the opportunity to borrow up to £10,000 interest-free to bring vacant ground-floor properties in the town centre back into use.
Plymouth recorded a 6% rise in footfall and more than 30-plus new pop-up shops. |
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