Recommendation 64

Whilst not the typical ownership structure of a high street, landlords who own an extensive area within a town centre can curate and maintain successful high streets with a variety of businesses and services on offer. In Staines-upon-Thames, the CEO of Spelthorne Borough Council highlighted to us that owning the Elmsleigh Shopping Centre not only created a financial return for the authority but also allowed the council to make choices about whom to rent space to based on what would stimulate local vitality and support the community. 128 Councillor Slade gave the example of Poole Town Centre, where the landlord owns the shopping centre and surrounding streets and had “been able completely to reimagine the town centre”. 129 Another example we heard was Catherine Hill in Frome (see Box 4). In contrast, in the more common circumstance where many landlords were operating on one high street it could be difficult to work towards a single vision. 130 Mr Dransfield acknowledged that owning the entire shopping centre gave him the ability to curate their offer, but that: “If you have hundreds or thousands of landlords on one street, they do not have the same agenda.” 131 Box 4: Catherine Hill, Frome Frome is a traditional market town in eastern Somerset, situated 12 miles from Bath and 25 miles from Bristol. Frome Town Council is one of the 279 towns and parishes of Somerset Council, which has been the unitary authority for the area since 2021. Frome is characterised by a large number of local, independent shops and markets, with roughly 75 per cent of retailers being independents and 17 per cent chains. There is a relatively small proportion of vacant properties on the high street. In the 2010s, the town centre manager, employed by Somerset Council, and responsible for managing Frome, established a vacant property schedule and sought to build up good relationships with landlords, who were themselves willing to put together flexible leases and reduce rents. Peter Wheelhouse, Deputy Town Clerk at Frome Town Council, highlighted to us the vital role of local entrepreneur Gavin Eddy, whose decision to offer lower rents on Catherine Hill “[gave] birth to a new artisan shopping quarter”. Frome Town Council supported him and other relevant landlords and enabled a series of local events to help increase footfall to Catherine Hill. One example of this was the council’s early investment in The Frome Independent, a monthly artisan street market, of which the landlord was a founding member. Source: Q 161 (Peter Wheelhouse); Frome Town Council, [Homepage]: https://www. frometowncouncil.gov.uk/ [accessed 4 November 2024]