As the Business Improvement District in Harrogate, tackling and understanding why units are vacant is a key objective in our overall Business Plan. We know that the high street is always changing and commercial units need to be used in an ever-shifting fashion.
Whether it’s installing stunning street art or window vinyl celebrating our fantastic town, its heritage and twinned towns, or utilising the vacant space for our events such as the Harrogate Self Care Week, we’re always introducing new ideas and campaigns to help ensure our town centre remains vibrant even with a small number of empty sites.
The latest vacancy rate for our town, shared by North Yorkshire Council, stands at 7.8%, or 42 out of 538 units – almost half the national average, which stands at around 14%. We work hard throughout the year to maintain this low rate and even look decrease where we can by encouraging businesses from outside of town to join Harrogate’s business community.
We aim to consistently engage with landlords and property owners to ensure our town continues to have a top offer and looks the best it can for local businesses, residents and visitors – but this can occasionally come with challenges.
Complexities such as the process of contacting offshore landlords, those in pension schemes investing to become property owners, or the Government’s inflexibilities around business rates for new businesses can sometimes come as a challenge for us when looking to enhance or improve these spaces.
A good example of areas of the town centre where vacant units are often not a problem is James Street. This area is owned by a number of local landlords who have their finger on the pulse when it comes to national trends and are on the ball with supporting businesses to move into their units. Local landlords can also make it much easier when we’re looking to uplift or dress a vacant unit as the contact streams are often much simpler making discussions on permission much more painless.
Meanwhile, other key areas of the town centre can sometimes lead to more complex situations and difficulties due to inaccessible landlords and ownerships including offshore pension funds. Nevertheless, we are still investigating into how we can work with the owners of the unoccupied spaces in these areas and the Local Authority as we work towards achieving our objectives and Business Plan as we move further into our second term as the BID in Harrogate.
On a national level, two additional areas we as the BID have been pushing for are a full Government reform of business rates and the introduction of the high street rental auction rule, which allows a Local Authority to take ownership of a vacant unit that has not seen any changes within a 12-month period.
Finally, as the BID we are currently engaging with an organisation called The Vacant Shops Academy that has proven success working in other locations in North Yorkshire to identify the challenges and ultimately lower an area’s vacancy rate.
If you have any questions, please email the BID team on info@harrogatebid.co.uk