From The BBC:
A government scheme to turn empty shops in England into community facilities has been criticised as not enough to rejuvenate High Streets.Local authorities in 57 of England’s most deprived areas are being given about £50,000 each to find “creative” ways to use vacant stores. But the British Retail Consortium (BRC) says that art galleries and community groups will not attract shoppers. It predicts that 15% of High Street shops will be empty by the end of 2009. This would be more than double the 7% of stores that were vacant at the start of the year. ‘Modest’Communities Secretary John Denham said the grants would help “transform and re-open empty shops as part of our real help to keep town centres vibrant and combat the recession”. “Those councils will now be able to use our funding to come up with their own creative ideas to transform their boarded-up shops into something useful like a learning centre, meeting place for local people or showroom for local artists,” he added. But th…
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