Jess Craig

Screenshot from Business and Trade Committee report on the Small Business Strategy. Conclusion: Community owned businesses have significant potential to support the renewal of high streets and safeguard valued local assets. The introduction of a community right to buy represents an important step towards empowering local groups to take ownership of assets at risk. However, the effectiveness of this new right will depend on whether communities have the practical means to act when opportunities arise. Recommendation: The Government should consider reintroducing the Community Ownership Fund, or other mixed finance methods for financing the community ownership of properties on the high street.

The Business and Trade committee published its report on the Small Business Strategy yesterday. V pleased to see it highlight the role of community business in high street regeneration and adopt @powertochange.org.uk recommendation for funding to support the introduction of Community Right to Buy

Nudge Community Builders | Transforming Communities Today Discover how Nudge Community Builders revitalizes Plymouth's Union Street by unlocking empty spaces, supporting local businesses, and fostering community growth.

And of course, they’ve got their eyes on more buildings to nudge back into use.

Find out more on their website:
www.nudge.community

What’s next? There’s lots of investment flowing into Plymouth, including on defence just down the road in Devonport. Nudge want to ensure residents in Stonehouse can see the benefit of inward investment flowing into their neighbourhoods and creating jobs and opportunities.

Too much of the value communities create in these buildings flows into the hands of private landlords through meanwhile/leasing of space. Community ownership helps keep that investment local. 84% of Nudge’s spending is in Plymouth and 56% within a mile of Union Street.

What could help make more Nudges possible? Community businesses often struggle to get money quickly, to buy properties when they become available. Pre-agreed financing has been essential for Nudge but a more agile facility to fund community buyouts is needed.

This work has a remarkable local impact - creating new spaces for business and community, jobs, housing and returning life and colour to the high street. But as directors Hannah and Wendy told us, securing long-term investment and backing is hard and the work is viewed as risky.

All of Nudge’s spaces have been brought into stable, long-term community ownership through piecing together grants, loans, and raising £550K from their community shareholders, and they won’t be stopping any time soon.

Why take on such a large and tricky building? Hannah, co-director of Nudge said: ‘We bought the building because it is too important to our community to be standing empty.’

The beautiful decorative ceiling of the Millennium’s auditorium.

The exterior of the Millennium, which has recently been fitted with new windows.

Upstairs in the Millennium, currently undergoing a significant renovation.

The Millennium is a local icon - built in the thirties, its bee a cinema, dance hall and a much loved local night club before closing for over 15 years. Now in community ownership it’s getting a lot of TLC before it reopens as a vibrant local venue and studio spaces.

Nudge are looking for investment to turn part of this site into affordable housing, inspired by the experience of one of their team members who struggled with the cost of accommodation after getting employed, to provide a safe scaffolding for local young people who need help building their lives.

Signs reading ‘welcome’ and ‘hello’ and an old pub sign resting on the ground in a building site.

A mushroom farm (the legal kind) in the barrel cellar.

The makings of a vertical urban farm for growing micro greens. The site is still under development so there are building materials sat around.

C103 had been boarded up for over a decade. Now as it begins its transformation into space for the community and business, it’s housing the makings of an urban farm with mushrooms growing in the old barrel cellar to be sold to local shops and restaurants.

Since 2017 they’ve opened 5 buildings and 4000sqm land and have plans for lots more. But more than 6700sqm of land on the high street still stands empty.

Nudge’s work is based around Union Street in Stonehouse, Plymouth. Their goal is to bring empty buildings on the street - many of them in complex and sometimes shadowy ownership and often in states of great disrepair - back into use for the benefit of the community.

The exterior of Union Corner, Nudge’s first site with a bright facade bringing colour back to the high street. Hannah, co-director of Nudge (in a red coat and blue hat) is talking to an assembled group of people about the site.

Had a great day visiting the fantastic @nudgecommunity.bsky.social with civil servants and @powertochange.org.uk to discuss all things community ownership and high street regeneration. Come for a look around… (🧵)

Also absolutely *right* that Epstein's victims were acknowledged when all the political intrigue over Mandelson/the threat to the PM's position seems to have slightly lost sight of them. I can't say it better than this: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The government needs a new high streets strategy. Here’s what it should do. - Power to Change Britain’s high streets are in visible decline, and the government needs a strategy that sets out a bold new vision. By addressing the physical, economic and ...

Wrote last week about what I think should be in the high streets strategy (and it's not just support for retail businesses!)
www.powertochange.org.uk/evidence-and...

High streets did get a brief nod, but think the government should say and do more here. Developing a new economic model for the high street that creates purpose to visiting them beyond buying things (like accessing the NHS, education and training, and more community spaces) will do both.

The vision for visible renewal and greater pride and connection is a good one, but I would have liked to have heard a 'how' more in the vein of his call for 'growth from the grassroots' (in his 2025 conference speech) to really knit together achieving local pride and higher living standards.

Very likely the PM's speech today will be remembered more for his apology on Mandelson but good nonetheless to hear Pride in Place is being extended to 40 more places.

Have seen this take a lot and really disagree. Gov’t could invest in anchor institutions for towns; build FE colleges in town centres; set up childcare co-ops; retrofit iconic buildings and make them into community gyms, etc. We are more than individual consumers - that’s the point of politics!

trust in institutions - and what it does to democracy. I do see some great retail-led changes, but I fundamentally believe we need a wider conversation about the future of the high street and hope in pushing - as I do in my piece - for an ambitious civic vision we can get past the gloom.

@vacantshopsacademy.bsky.social I think you're right to highlight the positives, of which there are many brilliant community-driven examples. But I don't think we can ignore the very real, serious impact that what people see on their high streets has on their sense of local pride, control...

The government needs a new high streets strategy. Here’s what it should do. - Power to Change Britain’s high streets are in visible decline, and the government needs a strategy that sets out a bold new vision. By addressing the physical, economic and ...

So as government starts to detail its plan for high streets my main plea is to think beyond RHL and towards a much bigger, braver reimagining of the high street, what it's for and what it will take for it to succeed. My full piece is here: www.powertochange.org.uk/evidence-and...

Lastly, if govt can make these sorts of changes in the shorter term, it should create some space to do the hard but necessary structural reforms that are needed for long-term survival. Starting with much more fundamental reform of how we tax land and property, and capture value of e-commerce.

But I also think govt has a real role in telling the story of what's gone wrong and articulating a bold and ambitious narrative about a possible future that gives people something they want to be part of.

As @drjennings.bsky.social says there's an opportunity for a broad public conversation about the future of the high street. Many community businesses are already demonstrating what's possible - like @nudgecommunity.bsky.social in Plymouth and many many more. bsky.app/profile/drje...

Next - and the bit most exciting to me - is shaping a new vision for the high street. There's growing consensus that the future high street can't depend on retail alone. A version that blends RHL with civic purpose could be more vibrant and resilient.

But government could also test approaches that focus on helping consumers back to the high street - as there's obvious interaction between lower footfall and lack of disposable income.

'Britain’s high streets need Community Investment Zones' - LabourList Community Investment Zones would give communities the tools to realise the next era of our high streets and town centres.

Next, shape the conditions for businesses to trade and consumers to spend there. I suggested applying the logic of investment zones to the high street (for @labourlist.bsky.social in December 👇) and liked @jacktshaw.bsky.social idea for High Street Development Zones. labourlist.org/2025/12/labc...

Power to Change's idea for a High Street Buyout Fund to strategically buy, invest and transfer buildings into community ownership: www.powertochange.org.uk/wp-content/u...