We Made That’s Post

Great to read this on the value of a vibrant high street. I've recently moved to Margate and one of my favourite facts about the town is that as recently as 2012 the high street vacancy rate was 36.5%. Now, in 2024, it is all the way down to 14.6%! (Yes, I am that kind of researcher that looked up these stats... https://lnkd.in/eSr9vqSe). This matters because it means there are more places to go out and be social, more reasons to be out in public, more opportunities to meet new people, and more people employed. High street vacancies are a key indicator of the health of the public social life of an area – and more places should be paying attention to orgs like We Made That trying to create positive change.

I'm always interested in reflections on high streets, especially when they come from lovely people that I've had the pleasure of working with throughout the years. Holly Lewis' reflections resonate deeply with the discussions that Roland Karthaus, Tanushree Agarwal and I had as part of the Homes England Learning Programme on town centre regeneration. One of the key questions that came up time and time again was: what is the future of the high street and what uses have done better in recent years? To me, it feels like perhaps we need to reframe that thinking slightly. High streets have always been more than just places to shop—they’re cultural and social hubs, anchors of local identity. If we want them to thrive, we need to reimagine their purpose and strengthen their capacity to serve as vibrant community spaces. As someone who has dedicated over a decade to working on high streets and town centres, I really agree with Holly's emphasis on local partnerships as the key to truly shaping the function that high streets should protect moving forward: spaces where communities can come together. But, fixing our high streets isn’t just about addressing what’s wrong; it’s about fostering long-term resilience. This means creating a vision for high streets that aligns with what people value and need, and ensuring they remain accessible, affordable, and adaptable. Achieving this requires a collaborative approach where landlords, businesses, and the community at large are actively involved in their evolution and decision-making. Giving more agency and powers to local authorities and communities is a brilliant step in their direction. #highstreets #regeneration

▶️ "Investment in our high streets is investment in our communities" ◀️ Check out Holly Lewis (We Made That)'s article for The Guardian on how transforming vacant buildings can turn high streets into hubs for health, education and sustainability — and where government might best focus its efforts and spending. How to start making this happen where you are? As Holly puts it, "This will require convening partners who may not usually work together – health services with market traders or universities with shop landlords – in a place-based model, where differences between groups who may not be used to joining forces are overcome for the sake of a shared location." 🪄 Long-term change and vibrancy will only happen if partners like councils, asset owners and community leaders collaborate, to unlock buildings for amazing ideas that meet local needs (what we call #LocalPropertyPartnerships) 🏘️ https://lnkd.in/ehvjwbhW Mark Robinson Ion Fletcher Naomi Rubbra Frances Northrop Rebecca Trevalyan Amanprit Arnold

How are high streets to thrive in a world in which bricks and mortar retail is in a seemingly unstoppable decline? That's the challenge for local authorities across the UK who have a responsibility to ensure their town centres are thriving hearts of the community. According to the House of Lords Built Environment Committee, the answer is threefold: local leadership, innovation, quality. So far, so orthodox; but their report published last week, 'High Streets: Life beyond retail?' has a number of interesting planning recommendations. Among them: - expansion of the commercially flexible use class E - review of permitted development rights that allow shops to be converted into houses - greater use of Article 4 directions to curate high streets - NPPF amendments to prioritise town centre first retail and support location of libraries, civid buildings and health centres on high streets. There's plenty more to take in - not least a complete overhaul of towns funding streams - and our news report does a thorough job, with commentary from the committee chair Daniel Moylan and high streets expert Vicky Payne. Have a read and tell us what you think in the comments below: https://lnkd.in/eVUkHQpY Pic credit: William Barton, Shutterstock #highstreets #towncentres #urbanplanning

Next week, Council will vote on the Heights framework within The London Plan. You may have heard that there is a proposed amendment to allow for Stacked Townhouses and Apartments (max 4 storeys on Neighbourhood connectors and fronting a park, max 6 storeys on Civic Boulevards and Urban Thoroughfares) on all Neighbourhood Connectors in the City. For Ward 7 the streets in grey on the map (see London Plan Map 3) are considered Neighbourhood Connectors. I believe this amendment requires more time for consultation with residents on these streets. Most people don’t know their street classification and probably haven’t thought about what these changes could mean. I do think this needs to be looked at more closely alongside proposed zoning changes which have yet to come forward. I’ll be asking for an amendment to remove allowing stacked townhouses across the entire City and increasing the heights from 3 to 4 stories on Neighbourhood connectors. My rationale is, we need to consult with residents. For residents in my Ward, the largest neighbourhood connector is Tokala Trail and as many of you know transit doesn’t extend into the neighbourhoods of Foxfield, so once again, we are adding density where transit could be a challenge. The initial recommendation was for Neighbourhood connectors in primary transit areas only (primary transit areas are: Fanshawe Park Road to the north • Wonderland Road to the west • Southdale Road (west of White Oak Road) and Bradley Avenue (east of White Oak Road) to the south • Highbury Avenue to the east). Allowing time for engagement will not impact our housing accelerator funding, so we have time to make this decision. Doing engagement after we make a decision (in between readings etc.) doesn’t allow people to fully engage in the process. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this matter. You can do so with Council, here is the link to the file to make contact: Council-Contact-List-Jan 2024_0.pdf (london.ca) The map and legend are available here: https://lnkd.in/gThdnfbb. #Ward7 | #LdnOnt | #Neighbourhood | #roadways

This is an absolutely massive development! Huge respect to the Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner for sticking his neck out and showing some real leadership here - and well done to everyone at Brisbane City Council who helped make this happen. Parking minimums place a huge premium on new housing, adding somewhere to the tune of $80,000-$100,000 to the cost of every new apartment. In my mind, removing parking minimums is the single greatest opportunity to actually decrease the cost of new apartments. When we’re talking about areas that are well serviced by high frequency public transport, we should simply let developers choose how much parking they want to supply. They understand their customers better than anyone and they won’t make money if they put together an undesirable offer. Let home buyers tell developers how much parking they need, instead of imposing arbitrary rates that apply to the entire city in areas that are incredibly well serviced by public transport. #housingcrisis #auspol #parking #housingaffordability

With Boston facing declining office values and the end of the office building boom that drove a lot of the City’s budget growth over the last two decades, it needs to find new ways to grow. While differences between how NYC and Boston’s tax systems mean not all of these proposals make sense in Boston, the idea of reducing costs for home-builders by eliminating all parking minimums is one idea that Boston could implement.

Suburban renaissance man Russell Curtis has calculated that London suburbs could accommodate 900,000 more homes through gentle densification. Even a fraction of this would be a major boon for London’s struggle to build the homes it needs. But suburban density is often unpopular and politically toxic. Perhaps we need to talk more about how density creates local amenity and sustains threatened local services - from bus services, to schools, to pubs and shops. Density is our cities’ secrets sauce. We should say that more, I argue for OnLondon #density #suburbs #goodgrowth

Car parks vs more housing. The one thing you can always rely on for submitters being angry about! The key to this is active transport and public transport that is efficient, frequent and safe. Definitely part of the housing affordability conversation.

Quiye honestly, do you believe that spending 10,000,000,000 pounds to support our high streets would be better spent on reinventing them into habitable accommodation where they cannot be revitalized. There are nearly 7000 High St. in the UK. where the high streets cannot be revitalized because someone has built a shopping centre not naming who, do you not believe the money would be better spent making the shops into habitable homes, employing, carpenters, electric, plumbers, builders, etc. in other words, boosting our economy and getting people somewhere to live if there has been a shopping centre built or a retail park I guarantee the high Street will never rise from the ashes like a phoenix. do you have an opinion? #HighStreets #(BID) #Rejuvenation #Future #Management #LocalCouncils #Media