£2.6m Christmas Bonus for use of empty shops • Meanwhile lease template launched
The government has awarded a £2.6m ‘Christmas bonus’ to 50 more high streets to transform empty shops into temporary creative projects, and launched three 'meanwhile use' lease templates for landlords.
The £52,000 grant to each council is being given to help them to find creative uses for vacant retail premises, such as creating artist showrooms and projects. The government wants to make sure town centres in the top half most deprived local authority
areas are turned into vibrant places over the festive period.
In Harlow, the grant will include a ‘Sculpture Town’ project to fit out empty shops as studios for local artists. In Nottingham, the council is using their empty shops grant to cover a property in an Advent Calendar of children’s art that changes daily. In Leicester, artists will be showing their artwork around the city after Christmas.
The extra funding from the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) was announced by Communities Secretary John Denham on 4 December and follows the £3m allocated to 57 of the hardist hit areas in August after the launch of the Looking after our Town Centres guide. Around 30 per cent of the new grants will go to rural areas.
Special lease templates called 'meanwhile use leases' have also now been launched by CLG, together with the Meanwhile Project, set up by the Development Trusts Association. These are designed to make it easier for local groups to temporarily use a vacant property rent free for a non-commercial purpose while the landlord seeks a permanent new business.
These standardised lease documents will give landlords the chance to reduce their property bills costs, avoid empty property rates, ensure the building is maintained whilst having the legal assurance of getting the property back quickly once they can let it commercially again.
In Hastings, several buildings have been brought back into use on an intermediary leases and their 'Meanwhile Project' is beginning to tackle longstanding empty buildings as well as those recently vacated.
Three versions of the temporary use leases have been created, which are available free of charge at the CLG website at: www.communities.gov.uk/citiesandregions/propertyissues/businesstenanciesguidance/meanwhileusespecimen.
Housing and Planning Minister John Healey has also given councils special waivers to allow changes to large developments and town centres without needing planning permission. Local Development Orders (LDOs) makes it easier for developers and councils to find new uses for empty shops on the high street.
For more details of all the above, go to the CLG website.
For more news and useful links regarding the temporary use of empty retail spaces as artist studios, go to the new NFASP Empty Spaces section.
Date posted: 7th December 2009