Retail Trade: Urban Areas

(asked on 15th May 2019) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will publish the results of the first round of applications from the Open Doors pilot.


Answered by
James Brokenshire Portrait
James Brokenshire
This question was answered on 20th May 2019

The Open Doors Pilot was announced in the 2018 Budget and seeks to demonstrate a new way to approach the challenge of vacant commercial properties on high streets by matching landlords of empty commercial properties across England with community groups looking for space.

We received 30 applications from landlords offering their properties for use by the deadline of 31 December 2018 and announced the five locations selected for the pilot in April 2019; these are in Slough, Kettering, Stoke-on-Trent, Bradford and Rochford.

Applications from community groups wishing to use the spaces are now being accepted on a rolling basis, and we expect to have the first groups in place later this Summer.

Reticulating Splines