Southport town centre could benefit from adopting new powers to force landlords to rent out long-term empty properties.
The appeal will be proposed at Thursday night’s full Sefton Council meeting by Southport councillors John Pugh and Danny Howard, among a series of suggestions to revitalise Lord Street and surrounding streets.
They are asking fellow councillors across all parties to back their motion to register our town’s high streets for High Street Rental Auctions under the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023.
This new legislation introduced High Street Rental Auctions as a new power for local councils to require landlords to rent out persistently vacant commercial properties.
This legislation aims to reduce high street vacancies, boost local economies, and empower communities to improve their areas.
The Act supports local authorities aiming to designate streets as high streets or town centres and orders the auction of certain empty premises.
They will ask Sefton Council to back their plea on ‘Lord St and Others’ to:
(1) recognise the key place high streets such as Lord Street occupy within our community
(2) applaud all efforts by elective representatives, organisations, officers and individuals to address their decline and vacancy rate
(3) identify them (Lord Street in particular) as priceless assets that must be secured for the future
(4) believes they must rise to the challenge of the digital age and new patterns of retail and therefore, in addition to excellent initiatives like Homes above Shops will consider
(a) enhancing dedicated resources -both human and financial- tasked to regenerate our high streets
(b) registering our high streets for High Street Rental Auctions under the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023
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