45,000 homes could be delivered by developing vacant town centre space

Tens of thousands of new homes could be built by developing space left empty in Britain’s struggling town centres, according to new research that comes amid calls to solve Britain’s high street and housing woes.

Vacant retail spaces in town hotspots across the UK could be replaced by a minimum of 45,000 residential properties, data from planing consulting Turley has found.

Some 8m square feet of floorspace currently lies unused in the UK’s urban centres, with more consumers opting to shop online helping to drive a rise in retail insolvencies.

Today’s research underlines recent calls to boost footfall for struggling retail outlets by building new residential development on high streets and in town centres.

“Securing the future of our town centres is a critical national issue – and one that is rightly getting a lot of attention. These centres are vital to residents, communities and businesses alike and are engines of economic growth. It is vital that these areas are allowed to evolve and that the planning system is match fit to support this,” said Richard Laming, senior director and head of economics at Turley.

One of the report’s co-authors and a director in Turley’s planning team, Paul Keywood, added: “We believe that for these centres to continue to succeed and serve the needs of their communities they need to embrace a mixed-use future where the balance of uses shifts from what we have traditionally seen.”