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(asked on 8th June 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to provisions contained in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill which would allow the rental auction of vacant high street units, whether he has held discussions with public sector organisations about potentially occupying such units.


Answered by
Neil O'Brien Portrait
Neil O'Brien
This question was answered on 16th June 2022

On Wednesday 11 May the Department introduced the Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill (LURB) into Parliament. This new legislation will play an important role in reviving our high streets by introducing High Street Rental Auctions (HSRAs). HSRAs will empower places to tackle decline by bringing vacant units back into use and will seek to increase cooperation between landlords and local authorities, and to make town centre tenancies more accessible and affordable for tenants, including SMEs, local businesses and community groups.

The measure will focus on all commercial property in town centres and on high streets, for the purpose of incentivising commercial uses, and will exclude residential, industrial and warehousing. It is short-term measure in which landlords will be receiving rents and service charges throughout the lease period and will retain their property, including rights to forfeiture.

A standardised lease will be developed and used to ensure consistency and fairness, and the auction process will include safeguards for landlords to be able to feed into the process. There are some important processes and procedures that we need to develop in tandem with the passage of legislation, including how the auction process itself will run, how landlords can input into the terms of the standardised lease including any break clauses. We will also consider how larger unoccupied units can be rented out and more crucially how we can ensure HSRAs are accessible to start-ups, community groups and local businesses.

Throughout this process we have spoken to stakeholders (landlords, tenants, local authorities, community organisations) and reviewed available data at regular intervals. We will continue to work with the industry during bill passage to ensure that any conditions are appropriate for the parties and the market more broadly. This engagement will help inform secondary legislation.

By introducing this measure, Government is continuing to empower councils to take a proactive and ambitious approach to placemaking, supporting them to feel more confident in how they approach the challenges of vacant property on the high street. Together with the other tools available to local authorities, this will help create attractive and lively high streets, with increased footfall and activity which attracts people and businesses, increases pride in place and avoids the long-term presence of vacancies.

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