Powers to allow councils to ‘force’ landlords to let high street premises that have been empty for more than a year, were outlined in the Queen’s Speech on the 10th May 2022 (Prime Minister’s Office, 2022) with more details on the High Street Rental Auctions (HSRAs) announced on the 11th May as part of the Government’s Levelling up and Regeneration Bill (2022).
But what impact will HRSAs have and how should they be used?
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The Institute of Place Management and its members are considering HRSAs in order to raise and answer pertinent questions for place leaders and managers considering how to work with the new legislation. In addition, and most importantly, our members are workign to produce advice and evidence that will support vacancy management in the broader context of high street vitality and viability.
This page collects the outputs of IPM's HRSA policy work, including:
On the 19th May, IPM hosted a policy roundtable on High Street Rental Auctions (HRSA), as announced in the recent Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.
We were joined by the team responsible for HRSA policy at the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). IPM invited Members, Fellows and Senior Fellows to represent various high street interests relevant to the legislation, from local authorities, property, agents and valuers, occupiers (commercial and community), Business Improvement Districts, high street users as well as academics.
IPM is in discussion with DLUHC to help answer questions from its membership as to the delivery and impact of HRSAs. Following the IPM roundtable in May 2022, we finalised a working set of questions and shared these with DLUHC in order to either receive an answer, where it already exists, or prompt discussion and development of questions as yet unaddressed by legislation or policy.
As IPM works on HRSA over the coming months, we will update this question bank, providing more answers and giving the opportunity for Members to ask their own questions via the live question bank.
Members can access the question bank now - via the IPM Members Area - and add their own questions.
Please follow the instructions below:
This document sets out an introduction to the powers, IPM's methodology for the policy impact assessment, a summary of main discussion points from IPM's policy round table, our current position towards the powers and, a list of questions asked by attendees to the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Appendix 1).