What will our high streets look like in years to come?  On present trends, familiar traders are on their way out:-

• Bank and Building Society premises have been dwindling for years and the rate will be increasing significantly with HBOS/Lloyds and Bradford & Bingley rationalisations

• Pubs are being forced out of business by the cheaper alternative of drinking at home and the legal alternative of smoking at home

• Retailers are increasing their online sales as this shrinks outgoings dramatically and traditional shop operators cannot compete.
 

These trends are partly short term credit crunch related but also longer term and here to stay.  Rents are bound to come down on a supply and demand basis and charity shops cannot “shop squat” all over town.  Further, the situation is not helped with the abolition of empty rates reliefs.

So what is the alternative to boarded up high street frontages?  J D Wetherspoon is expressing an interest in the architecturally interesting and spacious ex-banking hall premises that lend themselves to restaurants and bars, but proportionately, there are not so many of those.  The idea has been expressed that these centre of town sites work well for accommodation for the elderly, but this seems unlikely.  The vulnerability of anyone living at ground floor level in a town centre is obvious, let alone for the elderly.  As for flats above pubs/shops, these are notoriously second grade and anyone contemplating funding refurbishment upgrade work would be better applying it to accomodation for the elderly that better suits its purpose and there are plenty of more positive and appealing prospects there.

On local authority initiatives, Liverpool City Council’s idea is a “Look of the City” project to target vacant and derelict property, particularly disused pubs, and bring them back into productive use.  Certainly they have the necessary powers but it remains to be seen what investment can actually be attracted.

What are the trend spotters coming up with?  It’s probably more about change of use than wholesale re-development.  The buildings may very well be sound and, in some high streets, positively attractive.  Anyone who can identify suitable uses will have the selling and letting agents eating out of their hands, let alone the owners and landlords.  Do you have any ideas?  Post them here!