Residential News

Portas Forgot to ‘Look Up’

21 Dec 2011

Mary Portas missed a trick in her review of the high street by failing to lift her head beyond the street level shop fronts and consider the impact of empty homes above stores, often controlled by the retailers themselves.

According to a leading property management company, that counts many of the high street’s biggest retailers among its client base, Portas has overlooked the social element of missed opportunities for creating a community by bringing people back to live on the high street.

Touchstone manages thousands of high street properties up and down the UK. Director, Jon Clark, says: “The problems reach well beyond the shop fronts. On our books alone we have around 1,500 residential units above shops that are currently unoccupied, owned by the retailers below or by the same landlord as the shop space. Thousands more are in a state of poor condition not attractive to young professionals.

“Unused residential properties in the high street can quickly create a ghost town. As a result, with fewer people living in the middle of town, the retail centre of gravity moves out-of-town creating a vicious circle of decline; fewer locals to use the high street so shops are boarded up driving the remaining residents out too. The reinstatement of vacant units above retail premises will benefit town centres and help support local shops and traders.”

“However, tough times on the high street mean that many retailers simply don’t have the resources to invest in bringing this stock back into a lettable condition and government support is needed to unlock this opportunity to bring these units back into occupation and help re-vitalise the high street.”
 

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