High street regeneration

There is a lot of discussion about the decline of the UK’s town centres in the media and among local authority members, officers and built environment professionals. Out of town retail and online shopping have reduced the reasons why people want to go ‘into town’ while the system of business rates puts additional pressures on small high street businesses. The talk is often about empty shops or a proliferation of less desirable uses such as betting shops, fast food outlets and charity shops. 

In reality the picture is more complex, with some high streets thriving, others struggling and many showing a mixture of both. The entrepreneurial and creative spirit means there are always people looking for space for their businesses and cultural and community ventures. Historic buildings and spaces can play an important rolein town centre regeneration, offering authentic spaces for all types of business, community and arts uses to find a home.This is part of places re-imagining their function and what draws people and communities into village, town and city centres. Walkable, characterful, human-scale environments where you can experience the authentic qualities of places are what many people are seeking on days out close to home or mini-breaks overseas.

Heritage-led high streetregeneration can be seen as part of addressing the climate crisis. The saying that “the greenest building is the one that is already built” is contested, but what we can say is that embodied carbon should be at the centre of every decision surrounding whether to retrofit and re-use existing buildings and we question the‘demolish and redevelop’ paradigm.

Many Heritage Network members are active in Town, City or Village centre regeneration; Historic Coventry Trust with their High Street Heritage Action Zone, Tyne and Wear Building Preservation Trust with their work in Sunderland, Haverhub re-using the post office building in Haverford West, Grace Hill Old School Trust restoring many buildings a historic village centre in Northern Ireland, The Ridge bringing several buildings back to life along Dunbar’s main street. Independent, non-profit organisations can be light on their feet and deliver historic building restoration projects which the public sector would struggle with, and the private sector would not find profitable. Network members are experienced at accessing funding, engaging with communities and stakeholders and working creatively to find end-uses for buildings.

Since 2020 the Heritage Network has been organising events throughout the UK to celebrate and shareour members experiences with high street regeneration so that others can learn from them. We have also brought in experts such as the Institute of Place Management and its Empty Shops Academy, Stirling University and the authors of the bookHigh Streetand the #Woolies15 report. We also heard from many local authorities about their initiatives to revive and sustain high street as well as agencies such as Historic England and Historic Environment Scotland. This programme of events started as a three-year commission from the Architectural Heritage Fund as part of their ‘Open High Streets’ programme which we delivered in partnership with Locality. When that project finished, we felt this was too important an issue for us not to be involved with and continued the programme supported by ticket sales and funding from National Lottery Heritage Fund, and the national heritage agencies Historic England and Historic Environment Scotland, Cadw and Department for Communities Northern Ireland.

By the end of 2024 we had delivered 14 in person events in Halifax, Bethnal Green, Plymouth, Lincoln, Birmingham, Manchester, Reading, Stirling, Haverfordwest, Lurgan, Wakefield, Paisley, Derry/Londonderry and Newport as well as 25 online events.

“The case studies, learnings reported were so very insightful. I touch typed 9 pages of notes!”

“I came from a local authority, and it was good to see the other side of the coin in terms of what people are looking for when dealing with local authorities and the barriers they face”

You can book tickets on our events page  and watch recordings of some of our previous events on our recordings page.