Thoughts & questions

• The LGA proposal is that the local authority would decide whether the owner of a property had taken reasonable steps to find a new tenant. What would the mechanism for this assessment be?

  I wouldn’t want to get involved in this, personally, as it seems to set the whole thing up for friction later on. However, people on the look out for space could be eyes and ears for councils. That energy should be harnessed in a constructive way while minimising the possibility of future disagreements.

• I can’t see property owners being steamrollered into letting artists and jumble sales use their buildings, myself. Potential tenants and local authorities will need to come up with compelling arguments.

  Either, that by boosting general morale and quality of life in an area it will speed local renewal and economic recovery; or that there is a business case that tenants on the temporary scheme can become commercial tenants later on. (Though at a significantly reduced level relative to the boom years. Some rent is better than no rent at all in a moribund commercial property market).

• What lessons can be learned from recent history and similar schemes (i.e.: Shoreditch in London)? How can those lessons be scaled up to avoid a London-centric bias in the network? (I’m not in London and I’m near rural communities, in Sussex, for the record).
• There are plenty of examples of local strategies where the arts and media are used as a catalyst for regeneration – like Folkestone – with mixed results in terms of creating jobs and bringing income to an area (though, arguably, the quality of life arguments trump these). Can these be synthesised and applied on a micro-level? Are there any case studies – of a cluster of streets or villages – where this has worked?
• How can friction, conflicts of interest and other tensions be pre-empted and mediated? For example, this goes against the grain of what many property developers do, which is to deliberately allow an area to fall into decline, buy everything up cheaply and conglomerate land into one big, high-value development.
• What about the (by now, presumably quite small) number of properties that local authorities still own, that may be lying derelict?
• Could commercial property management be brought into the scheme on a formal basis?
• What about individual owners donating space directly?
• In local government circles, people use the term “place shielding” to describe a line in the sand where you try to prevent areas from sliding into rack and ruin. What contribution can artists, “cultural industries” and community activities make to the evolution of this idea?

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