The recession was more the last kick of an already down business form, rather than a sudden shock to retail and the need for a central shopping high street.
The high street’s decline has been bruised by the recession, 1 in 5 shops stand empty in the North East and schemes are being set up to fill them temporarily until things pick up, focusing on art and creative solutions for a few months at a time.
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Before the recession, retailers were already suffering, seeing a drop in the amount of people visiting stores with more buying online, avoiding the trip to town entirely. In 2001 there were 300,000 broadband connections in the UK according to Ofcom, now there are 13 million, with 87% of those saying they buy goods online. The high street isn’t dead, it’s just weaker than it ever has been, and after the recession it will become weaker still as internet habits increase the demand for online shopping.
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If there isn’t the need to pay rent, rates and upkeep costs of a physical store then why pay for it? Retail can now be exclusively online.
The old shops will still be there, however, and there is a possibility of taking some of the temporary solutions being used to gloss over the grimness and make them a viable, permanent option, possibly giving a rethink to what you get out of a shopping district. What if you pop to Greggs, have a look around HMV, then see some art next door, not in a typical gallery or large museum, but a former 99p store?
The nub of this new innovation was when the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) gave £3m to convert empty shops into social enterprises, learning centres and local art displays. Pop up shops and temporary spaces have now spawned the disgusting word ‘poptrepreneur’, aimed at those opening a shop for a few months, giving the landlord some relief from the full business rates for helping out a cultural programme, and creating activity in an area that should be busy.
Made in Newcastle is one of those temporary spaces, although with more long term aims, now open on Nun Street in the centre of Newcastle.
Offering an open space to come in, buy art work, learn to sew, even a swap shop where you can bring an item and take another, the creative shop will be there until December, then, if the collective behind it can carry out their plans, they will move somewhere else and keep going.
“We can only change the high street if we don’t emulate what normal shops do.” - Rachael Streather, Made in Newcastle
Rachael Streather, who founded Made in Newcastle, said: “This town doesn’t belong to the people who live here, it belongs to Starbucks or Costa, or Primark, it doesn’t belong to us anymore so we’ve got to take it back. This place looks like a craft shop, and part of it is, but it’s much more than that. I really want to encourage people to take over parts of their town
“We can only change the high street if we don’t emulate what normal shops do, if we try and set up a business most people will fail because they don’t have the capital to keep it going, so we need to use a completely different model, and I don’t know what that is fully yet.
“We need to use people’s skill and enthusiasm and creativity, and not get attached to any one building.”
These temporary shops are proving to be a success, high footfall, a lot of fanfare from journalists alike, and a fresh look at what we do while we’re in town. The question now is can this be a permanent thing, or will it fade as quick as the term credit crunch when things are good again?
“It’s a property, not a shopping issue” said Nick Malyan, co-director and curator of Empty Shop, a business in Durham trying to make a viable business to make art a regular feature of shopping areas.
“The landlords want the stability of a regular lease on their place and the only people that are in a position to offer that in these times unfortunately are large organisations. If individual property owners or companies who own large amounts of properties can get a little bit braver and recognise there’s a shift in the way that people want things in the way that services and goods have to be provided, I think there’s a real possibility to get something a lot more interesting going on in high streets.”
The problem is in the temporary nature, often the agreements mean short term notice can be given, typically 4 weeks, to boot out the art space if a commercial operator comes along, offering long term stability to the landlord and another homogenous retailer to a shopping district.
“It’s always these times of conflict and economic downturns when you get the most creative responses” - Nick Malyan, Empty Shop
Empty shops has placed themselves as a sort of middle man, offering the landlords a long term ally to deal with, and artists the flexibility of rotating galleries and the customers variation in the art they see, and where they see it.
Nick added: “It’s always these times of conflict and economic downturns when you get the most creative responses. We want this to be a long term success, and we’ve been going for just over 18 months and what we’ve found is that the hunger is there.
“The next step for us is to make our input into the sustainability and developing an arm where the business comes to its completion where we are able to generate enough funds to do this full time.”
In Sunderland, the council has been contacting landlords to look at vacant retail space and improving them through short, medium and long term measures, although ideally the council says it would like them back to retail.
Through the council, the refurbishment of vacant units for artists on Nile Street is being used to provide working space and engage with with the community to develop a taste for the creative industries, planning to make it last up to two years.
A spokesperson for the Council said: “ It offers a concentration of regular activity by artists in a central location in the City and in close enough proximity to each other for all to benefit from joint profile raising events such as ‘Open Studios’ and small arts festivals.
“It also offers a focal point for other artists to link into and participate in projects, spreading ‘Sunderland Creatives’ message throughout the City and generating a vibrancy in Sunderland which will assist us to retain our creatives in the City.”
Retail is a business model that still has a valuable place, there won’t be an exodus of Marks and Sparks, but as the internet gets more trustworthy and relied upon, and as shoppers use websites to find a cheaper option more often, more elbow room is created to get landlords to rethink what their space can offer. If art or cultural spaces can figure out how to make enough money to cover the cost, the offering of a shopping district could permanently change.
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