New company aims to save UK high streets

Published on Property Week
By Jessica Newman

A team of retail and leisure experts has launched a new company called EVOLVE Partners [now AttisTowns] to help rescue town centres.

The company, which launched on 15th June, will work with property owners, occupiers and local authorities to devise strategic plans to revitalise high streets.

EVOLVE Partners [now AttisTowns] will put forward four-step plans to create partnerships, analyse the market position of a high street, then deliver a transformation strategy and a financial vehicle to drive the projects forward.

The strategies it comes up with will be designed to incentivise stakeholders to put money into a collective pot for public realm improvements to help the high streets become more of a destination.

Director Paul Barnes said the business intended to work with authorities to ensure the relevant CIL and S106 funding was used to enhance the town centres.

He added that EVOLVE Partners [now AttisTowns] also hoped to look at other ways developers could contribute to the improvement of the areas through planning permissions, either through capital investment or contributions to a fund for long-term management costs.

The EVOLVE Partners [now AttisTowns] team, which is made up of seven industry experts with experience of the London, Birmingham and Bristol markets, has worked for a number of the capital’s business improvement districts including King’s Road and Leicester Square.

Its directors also include former New West End Company chief executive Gary Reeves and former Newham borough police commander Tony Nash.

“Town centres will survive but they need to deliver a different set of offers to become the hub their local people want,” said Barnes, who also chairs the Association of International Retail. “They need to understand what visitors want and how they must change.

“Retail has become the dominant use of a town centre but hasn’t always been so,” Barnes added. “Town centres have to shrink as retailers move online; it just means they’ve got to change.”