For future high streets to work, public relevance and property owners are more important than public realm

72 English high streets have just been awarded over £831 million of government grants to help fund COVID-19 recovery and protect jobs. This is good news and reflects the importance of high streets to the fabric of British life.

Looking down the list of worthy projects now likely to go ahead, one thing strikes you. It’s all about the physical. Improving public realm, pedestrianisation, restoring and converting buildings, new transport centres, that sort of thing. 

It begs the question, what is more important – public realm or public relevance?

We can all name town centres where newly created pedestrian areas and public realm have not reversed the number of empty properties and the decline in visitor numbers. That was before COVID-19 and will clearly get worse as we struggle to deal with the aftermath of the pandemic.

When we established AttisTowns - bringing together as one team experts in all element of town centre transformation - we based our approach to town centre evolution on two principles, both of which have proved robust before and during coronavirus.

First, the key to a vibrant, viable and sustainable town centre is attracting visitors, encouraging them to stay longer and visit more often. How you do that is different for every town centre, but you need to get that bit right. Clearly, it’s no longer just retail, but a whole range of other attractions and uses which will make people want to come into town. It is this that should inform all your capital expenditure plans.

Which is why we believe that understanding all types of current and potential visitors, and what will attract them, must be at the heart of all transformation projects. We believe that time and resources spent on gathering and interpreting this information is vital right from the start, not just during consultations on advanced projects.

Secondly, what seems to be missing from so many plans is the active engagement of property owners, right from the start. They are the key to successful transformations. Unlike retailers and other occupiers, who can just surrender their leases and walk away, landlords have assets the value of which they need to protect and enhance.  

Property owners have both the incentive and the means to bring about town centre transformation. Which is why AttisTowns’ approach is to pull together local property owners to work as one in helping local authorities bring about meaningful transformation. This is not just for match-funding also for the imaginative flexibility of use and rents that help create new attractions for visitors.

Our partners already work with all the UK property BIDs but outside London, property BIDs are not yet allowed. However, AttisTowns has shown how existing BIDs can create informal voluntary property BIDs, and other arrangements, to provide long-term vision and additional funding to deliver town centres of the future.

For those authorities that have won Future High Street Fund monies, this is the time to look at new and holistic approaches that make sure that money is spent effectively and acts a catalyst for future additional investment. And for those who have not received funds, mobilising your property owners should be at the heart of your post-COVID-19 planning.

For AttisTowns, it is property owners and public relevance that create successful and sustainable town centres.

Paul Barnes is a partner at AttisTowns.  He is an advisor to New West End Company (the BID for London’s West End), is helping to establish BIDs for Knightsbridge and the King’s Road, and is Chief Executive of the Association of International Retail.