{"id":21787,"date":"2018-10-30T12:10:36","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T12:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buyassociation.co.uk\/?p=21787"},"modified":"2023-02-06T16:55:17","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T16:55:17","slug":"town-centre-living-set-for-budget-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/2018\/10\/30\/town-centre-living-set-for-budget-boost\/","title":{"rendered":"Town centre living set for Budget boost"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The UK high street could be a major beneficiary from measures announced by Philip Hammond in his 2018 Budget.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mr Hammond pledged that a new \u2018Future High Streets Fund\u2019 would be armed with \u00a3675m for local councils to \u201c\u2026. invest in the improvements they need, and to facilitate redevelopment of under-used retail and commercial areas into residential, helping with the housing challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was one of several property market-related measures in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/2018\/10\/30\/budget-2018-stamp-duty-boost-for-first-time-buyers\/\">the Budget,<\/a> which included<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Abolishing stamp duty for first time-buyers on properties up to \u00a3500k<\/li>\n<li>\u00a3500m for the Housing Infrastructure Fund to help build 650k new homes<\/li>\n<li>1bn allocated to support SME housebuilders<\/li>\n<li>Help to Buy scheme extended, and will now end in 2023<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Barely a week goes by without major retailers announcing a cut in their outlets around the country \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-45975321\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Debenhams<\/a> being the latest with a cull of 50 stores meaning another big name will disappear from many town centres.<\/p>\n<h4>Town centres set for much-needed boost<\/h4>\n<p>But the Chancellor of the Exchequer\u2019s proposals could see unused shops and business properties in towns redeveloped as places to live, along similar lines to what has already happened to transform the city centres of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/2018\/06\/04\/more-housing-investment-in-leeds-set-to-transform-the-city\/\">Leeds,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/2018\/05\/23\/manchester-and-salford-top-the-property-premier-league\/\">Manchester<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/2018\/10\/25\/the-uk-property-markets-fastest-growing-city-is-liverpool\/\">Liverpool.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Chancellor also revealed that the government will consult on relaxing planning rules, allowing some of the 50,000 empty shops in the country\u2019s towns and cities to be turned into residential homes.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/consultations\/planning-reform-supporting-the-high-street-and-increasing-the-delivery-of-new-homes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">planning reform consultation document<\/a> stated, &#8220;National planning policy is clear\u2026we should make effective use of previously developed land and buildings, including the airspace above existing buildings, to create new homes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The move was welcomed by the Federation of Master Builders, whose chief executive Brian Berry said: \u201cIt is estimated that as many as 300,000 to 400,000 new homes alone could be created by making use of empty spaces above shops on our high streets. There is a pressing need to re-invent many of our town centres in light of changing patterns of retail and leisure. The Government should be applauded for its ambition to safeguard the life of our high streets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe would urge councils to take this opportunity to look again at how they can work with local builders and developers to make better use of existing town centre building and facilitate the development of wasted space above shops.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some transformation of smaller city and town centres has already taken place, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/2018\/01\/05\/beat-boom-why-preston-next-investment-hotspot\/\">Preston<\/a> in Lancashire one example of where investment has led to major regeneration with multiple beneficial side effects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK high street could be a major beneficiary from measures announced by Philip Hammond in his 2018 Budget. Mr Hammond pledged that a new \u2018Future High Streets Fund\u2019 would be armed with \u00a3675m for local councils to \u201c\u2026. invest in the improvements they need, and to facilitate redevelopment of under-used retail and commercial areas<a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/2018\/10\/30\/town-centre-living-set-for-budget-boost\/\" title=\"ReadTown centre living set for Budget boost\">&#8230; Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3875,"featured_media":18038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,6],"tags":[361,110,341],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6092486,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21787\/revisions\/6092486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}