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Movement to get British enterprise into empty shops

A group of pop-up experts is in talks with the latest high street brands to announce closure in a bid to re-open hundreds of stores to home-grown British businesses.

A newly-formed PopUp Forum, which includes Dan Thompson from the Empty Shops Network, Emma Jones, from national enterprise campaign StartUp Britainand Nick Russell from We Are Pop Up, have approached the administrators of HMV and Jessops with a plan which could give thousands of British start-ups an affordable taste of the high street.

Emma Jones said: “We’re working with the administrators’ lawyers to contact landlords and find out if we can take control of a percentage of the newly-closed shops with a view to offering affordable retail spaces to small and start-up British retail businesses, on a rolling basis.

“Last year may have been a bad year for big retailers, but it was a record year for British start-ups. Our local high streets are in trouble - and yet what small retail business wouldn’t give their right arm for the chance to trade in their own communities, generating sales and awareness of their brand?

Nick Russell said: “The job of administration is a long and arduous process that can take years. What we’ve asked for is the chance to throw open boarded-up shops for an agreed time to small businesses and give consumers the chance to support British enterprise.”

PopUp Britain, which is currently being showcased at the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), sees six small businesses and start-ups co-funding and co-working in a retail space for two weeks at a time. A specific pop-up lease has been developed to cover legal issues.

A successful pilot in Richmond, Surrey, saw more than 60 businesses take up a space in five months, with four in five saying the experience had been good for their business and more than 20 per cent reporting an increase in online sales after the experience.

Dan Thompson, who wrote Pop Up Business For Dummies, said: “Creative, independent shops and businesses are a growing part of the British economy right now. Times are hard yes, but resourceful people are making business ideas come to life and are reinventing the high street.”

According to latest stats from the British Retail Consortium (BRC), 11.3 per cent of shops are now empty. A recent BRC poll of MPs revealed that two-thirds believe high streets in their constituencies have deteriorated noticeably over the last five years.

MPs and Town Teams are set to be invited to view the PopUp Britain showcase at the DCLG at an event to be held later this month.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Liz Slee .