ICYMI: Govt announced £300m+ to fund High Street Innovation Partnerships & last week @jesscraig.bsky.social dug into learning from our Community Led High Street Innovators project - showing how communities can deliver long-term, meaningful regeneration of the high street👇
https://bit.ly/4s1a7Vb
We're actively working with community businesses across England testing innovative approaches to high street regeneration, unlocking empty buildings and bringing local people together to define the future of their high streets. Lots of useful learning for this type of fund - full report coming soon!
Really pleased to see the embrace of a mixed-use model envisioning high streets as sites of community connection, public service delivery and new homes. @powertochange.org.uk has long argued for a more diverse civic model for high streets to promote sustainability, vitality and community leadership.
Over the weekend the government announced £301m(!) for High Streets Innovation Partnerships to help communities 'reimagine and revive struggling high streets and make them fit for the future':
www.gov.uk/government/n...
A group of people in construction helmets and vests stand inside a partially renovated building with exposed brick walls and beams. They appear to be listening to a guide. A text overlay reads "Old buildings and new realities - New blog" with a logo for "Power to Change" in the corner.
A longing for ‘how things used to be’ threatens progress to reimagining the high street. But creative heritage-led regeneration ushers in a brighter future. @jesscraig.bsky.social shares reflections fresh from a visit to the community-run, historic Dewsbury Arcade:
https://bit.ly/40I0HmB
I've written something about nostalgia and the high street, and how heritage-led regeneration can bridge the gap between where places have been and where we're going. Bonus photo of me and colleagues in awe at those beams.
www.powertochange.org.uk/evidence-and...
As we approach the end of the project, there’s lots of very interesting learning emerging about the way that local relationships and partners inform the possibility of community-led regeneration and much more. We’ll be sharing our learning in the coming months.
A view of a shopping street that leads to the market, a mix of open and shuttered shops visible.
The market building and some of the outdoor stalls.
The arcade is clearly part of a much wider regeneration strategy. Dewsbury has a huge volume of retail space, lots of it empty. But also has a busy market that’s next to be redeveloped. The arcade will be an important catalyst anchoring footfall and upping vibrancy as transformation continues.
The exterior of Dewsbury’s grade II listed arcade. Still undergoing extensive redevelopment.
Exposed painted beam in the roof of the arcade, which has been stripped to the brickwork and the ceiling recently re plastered.
People in hi-vis and hard hats walking under scaffolding in an area of the building under intensive construction, looking into one of the small shop units that will be rented to local entrepreneurs.
Lovely day in Dewsbury yesterday with @powertochange.org.uk and our community-led high street innovator cohort visiting Dewsbury Arcade. This summer it reopens to the public for the first time in a decade, now council owned and community run . Look at those beams!
Screenshot from Business and Trade Committee report on the Small Business Strategy. Conclusion: Community owned businesses have significant potential to support the renewal of high streets and safeguard valued local assets. The introduction of a community right to buy represents an important step towards empowering local groups to take ownership of assets at risk. However, the effectiveness of this new right will depend on whether communities have the practical means to act when opportunities arise. Recommendation: The Government should consider reintroducing the Community Ownership Fund, or other mixed finance methods for financing the community ownership of properties on the high street.
The Business and Trade committee published its report on the Small Business Strategy yesterday. V pleased to see it highlight the role of community business in high street regeneration and adopt @powertochange.org.uk recommendation for funding to support the introduction of Community Right to Buy
And of course, they’ve got their eyes on more buildings to nudge back into use.
Find out more on their website:
www.nudge.community
What’s next? There’s lots of investment flowing into Plymouth, including on defence just down the road in Devonport. Nudge want to ensure residents in Stonehouse can see the benefit of inward investment flowing into their neighbourhoods and creating jobs and opportunities.
Too much of the value communities create in these buildings flows into the hands of private landlords through meanwhile/leasing of space. Community ownership helps keep that investment local. 84% of Nudge’s spending is in Plymouth and 56% within a mile of Union Street.
What could help make more Nudges possible? Community businesses often struggle to get money quickly, to buy properties when they become available. Pre-agreed financing has been essential for Nudge but a more agile facility to fund community buyouts is needed.
This work has a remarkable local impact - creating new spaces for business and community, jobs, housing and returning life and colour to the high street. But as directors Hannah and Wendy told us, securing long-term investment and backing is hard and the work is viewed as risky.
All of Nudge’s spaces have been brought into stable, long-term community ownership through piecing together grants, loans, and raising £550K from their community shareholders, and they won’t be stopping any time soon.
Why take on such a large and tricky building? Hannah, co-director of Nudge said: ‘We bought the building because it is too important to our community to be standing empty.’
The beautiful decorative ceiling of the Millennium’s auditorium.
The exterior of the Millennium, which has recently been fitted with new windows.
Upstairs in the Millennium, currently undergoing a significant renovation.
The Millennium is a local icon - built in the thirties, its bee a cinema, dance hall and a much loved local night club before closing for over 15 years. Now in community ownership it’s getting a lot of TLC before it reopens as a vibrant local venue and studio spaces.
Nudge are looking for investment to turn part of this site into affordable housing, inspired by the experience of one of their team members who struggled with the cost of accommodation after getting employed, to provide a safe scaffolding for local young people who need help building their lives.
Signs reading ‘welcome’ and ‘hello’ and an old pub sign resting on the ground in a building site.
A mushroom farm (the legal kind) in the barrel cellar.
The makings of a vertical urban farm for growing micro greens. The site is still under development so there are building materials sat around.
C103 had been boarded up for over a decade. Now as it begins its transformation into space for the community and business, it’s housing the makings of an urban farm with mushrooms growing in the old barrel cellar to be sold to local shops and restaurants.
Since 2017 they’ve opened 5 buildings and 4000sqm land and have plans for lots more. But more than 6700sqm of land on the high street still stands empty.
Nudge’s work is based around Union Street in Stonehouse, Plymouth. Their goal is to bring empty buildings on the street - many of them in complex and sometimes shadowy ownership and often in states of great disrepair - back into use for the benefit of the community.
The exterior of Union Corner, Nudge’s first site with a bright facade bringing colour back to the high street. Hannah, co-director of Nudge (in a red coat and blue hat) is talking to an assembled group of people about the site.
Had a great day visiting the fantastic @nudgecommunity.bsky.social with civil servants and @powertochange.org.uk to discuss all things community ownership and high street regeneration. Come for a look around… (🧵)
Also absolutely *right* that Epstein's victims were acknowledged when all the political intrigue over Mandelson/the threat to the PM's position seems to have slightly lost sight of them. I can't say it better than this: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Wrote last week about what I think should be in the high streets strategy (and it's not just support for retail businesses!)
www.powertochange.org.uk/evidence-and...
High streets did get a brief nod, but think the government should say and do more here. Developing a new economic model for the high street that creates purpose to visiting them beyond buying things (like accessing the NHS, education and training, and more community spaces) will do both.
The vision for visible renewal and greater pride and connection is a good one, but I would have liked to have heard a 'how' more in the vein of his call for 'growth from the grassroots' (in his 2025 conference speech) to really knit together achieving local pride and higher living standards.
Very likely the PM's speech today will be remembered more for his apology on Mandelson but good nonetheless to hear Pride in Place is being extended to 40 more places.
Have seen this take a lot and really disagree. Gov’t could invest in anchor institutions for towns; build FE colleges in town centres; set up childcare co-ops; retrofit iconic buildings and make them into community gyms, etc. We are more than individual consumers - that’s the point of politics!
trust in institutions - and what it does to democracy. I do see some great retail-led changes, but I fundamentally believe we need a wider conversation about the future of the high street and hope in pushing - as I do in my piece - for an ambitious civic vision we can get past the gloom.