Lottery millions boost for South Bristol's High Street

The project could see the community buying up empty shops

A project that could see the community buying up properties in one of Bristol’s most famous streets, to bring them back into use and give a boost to local businesses has been named as one of just five in the country to share a £2.5 million lottery grant.

The Bedminster Property Partnership is a new initiative that hopes to ‘unlock the high street buildings’ in East Street in Bedminster - which has seen a number of high profile retail departures in recent years, and has a number of large empty shops and pubs.

The National Lottery has given £2.5 million to set up five pilot schemes to transform town centre High Street buildings, and chosen projects in Liverpool, London, Newcastle, Sheffield and at East Street in Bedminster, for the money.

Those behind the Bedminster Property Partnership said their goal is to ‘bring people together’ - the community, local businesses, asset owners, the city council and other funders, to ‘understand who owns the properties on and around East Street, build relationships and trust between community business leaders, the council, asset owners and other people, and start to acquire freeholds and leaseholds of multiple anchor buildings, to activate them for long-term benefit’.

What that would mean in practice remains to be seen, but there are a number of large premises in East Street that are currently empty of retail, including the entire St Catherine’s Place shopping centre - which now has people living in many of the converted shops - the former Assembly pub, which was sold prior to auction recently, and the still empty Wilkos building, along with numerous other shops and businesses.

“We expect this to result in an increase in affordable goods and services aligned with local needs, small businesses and social enterprises, jobs and opportunities and social infrastructure and community hubs,” a spokesperson for the Property Partnership explained.

“We hope to set a new tone for how properties are owned, managed and used in and around East Street – so that over time it becomes less culturally acceptable to have long-term overpriced, vacant or neglected properties,” she added.

Those behind the partnership so far include the city council, the Bedminster Town Team, Action Greater Bedminster, asset owners, commercial agents, local residents and businesses, as well as Windmill Hill City Farm, overseen by the national social enterprise called Platform Place.

Windmill Hill City Farm’s CEO Steve Sayers welcomed the lottery boost. “We’re absolutely delighted that Bedminster is part of this national programme,” he said.

“Over the next three years we’ll be building a strong and diverse partnership with other local organisations that can put community into the heart of our high street, deliver engaging places for local people and help to regenerate the neighbourhood around East Street,” he added.

The kind of thing that forms part of the ethos of the project is the opening up of the Library of Things in one of the empty shops fronting East Street at the St Catherine’s Place shopping centre.

The money will got to Platform Places, who will work with the individual projects in each of the five cities. Its co-founder is Rebecca Trevalyan. “One in seven high-street shops are empty,” she said.

“Many more are underused or at risk of becoming so. At the same time, it’s often expensive and precarious for local businesses and community organisations to access secure, affordable workspace.

“Now more than ever, we need services in our town centres that help address the cost-of-living, social isolation and climate crises – whether arts and music venues, reuse and repair hubs, urban farms, community kitchens, youth and sports clubs, local markets, co-working spaces, or genuinely affordable housing,” she added.