By Elena Siniscalco
Nine out of ten of the former Debenhams shops are still empty. Projects like The Loft in Hounslow show what could be achieved if these precious spaces were to be repurposed, writes Elena Siniscalco
Sometimes things feel too good to be true. That’s definitely what you think walking into The Loft, a multipurpose creative space in Hounslow. The regeneration project, yet to be completed, will include a marketplace offering space at cheap rent rates to emerging businesses, a restaurant serving evening menus designed by refugees, a youth centre, and a mental health charities hub. It’s a vast safe space for underrepresented communities. Yet this time, it isn’t too good to be true – it’s simply an example of good ideas and planning gone right.
The Loft has taken up the second floor of what used to be a huge Debenhams store in the Treaty Centre. The latter opened in 1988, becoming a focal point for the Hounslow community – an extremely diverse borough right next to Heathrow airport. Debenhams was the key tenant, so when the department store chain shut down after 242 years, the Centre found itself with just too much empty space. The private owner, BWM Capital, filled the bottom and first floors. The second floor risked remaining vacant – facing the same destiny of nine out of ten of the former Debenhams.
But as dust was piling up on the empty shelves and naked mannequins, Jonathan Ashby-Rock, the artistic director of The Arts Centre on the floor below, was getting interested. He ended up leading the project with the council’s regeneration team. They got a grant from the Mayor’s High Streets for All Challenge Fund. The GLA followed the project step by step, providing guidance. The result is exactly what a regeneration project should look like.
You are walking into 2787m2 of potential. There’s space for up to 64 small businesses to set up camp here – and some already have, selling hand-made cushions or sustainable jewellery. A huge room in the back will be a youth centre, giving a place to be to all the kids whose parents work at Heathrow during the evenings or at unsociable hours. Next is The Kitchen, a colourful small restaurant collaborating with refugees to recreate their traditional recipes for evening menus. The first one, starting this week, will be a Mexican night. The mental health hub has taken up what once were the Debenhams offices, and now hosts charities like Mind and The Practical Approach.
Ashby-Rock designed this space for the local community: for everyone in the council who can’t afford to be on the high street because of high rent and business rates; for the kids sitting at home alone; for the people struggling with their mental health. “No square foot that was Debenhams is now not being used”, he says with a smile.
Unfortunately, inclusive regeneration projects are in scarce supply nowadays. The housing ones have so often pushed poor families out of their London neighbourhoods. Commercial ones often end up the home of boutique shops unapproachable for locals. The mayor has acknowledged the issue: the importance of including local communities in the projects now underpins his development strategy, the London Plan. But a real recognition of the systemic issue at the national level is still lacking.
So it’s no coincidence that most of the old Debenhams shops are empty, despite the potential of so much needed space. You could split them up into housing, open them up to host community centres, repurpose them for projects like The Loft. The one in Wandsworth has been turned into an entertainment centre with mini-golf and bowling; the one in Gloucester will become a university campus. Others, like the one in Southampton, will become apartment buildings.
And yet in many towns up and down the country, the new tenants are trying to sell the leasehold for a price no one in the area can afford. So these spaces will stay empty, or end up in the hands of an external buyer who might not care very much about how its new development affects the neighbourhood. This story is not new; it happened to all the empty shops sitting on our high streets. Nearly a fifth of our shops are owned by overseas investors with huge portfolios who, to put it very simply, don’t care that they’re empty. Last summer, campaigners urged the government to create a £350m high street buyout fund allowing businesses, local communities and councils to work together to repurpose empty shops. The GLA funding backing The Loft is a step in that direction.
“Times of change require new solutions, so people come up with solutions, and who knows, in ten years someone who starts here could be huge”, says John Abbate of SaveTheHighStreet, looking at the stalls in The Loft. The optimism of everyone involved in this project is contagious. It’s so powerful you’d think it could power up every empty Debenhams in the country – but that, unfortunately, would definitely be too good to be true.
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