The High Street Industry Movement
On a mission to ensure successful high streets, now and for the future.
Launching the movement
SaveTheHighStreet.org launched in August 2016 with the the release of a Manifesto that outlined a new vision for the high street and how we achieve it together.
Today, SaveTheHighStreet.org is led by a passionate dedicated team, an Advisory Board of 200+ high street businesses and industry experts, a fast-growing community of Local Champions and dozens of other partners across both public and private sectors. Together we’ve supported over 25,000 local businesses in the U.K. and we’re just getting started.
The high street in 2024
We are delivering a range of initiatives to transform and strengthen high streets in the U.K
Grass-roots research
We are studying ‘what it takes for local businesses to succeed on the high street’ with input from 1000+ businesses and experts across our community.
JO – the high street assistant
We are helping high street entrepreneurs, from startups to scale-ups, take their business to the next level with JO by SaveTheHighStreet.org
Business support interventions
We are combining market-leading technology, content and insight to radically improve the impact and economics of business support.
Repopulating vacant units
We are recruiting selected local businesses onto a unique package of rent-free space (for 4-12 weeks) and high impact support (powered by Jo).
Start-up Incubator
We are helping high street entrepreneurs to identify gaps in the market, develop their offering, build strong foundations and launch locally.
Local Champions support
We are supporting community groups, trader associations, BIDs, town teams, councillors and various other Local Champions across the UK.
Data-driven high street plans
We are collecting and analysing the data required to understand over/under supply of uses and specific Class E offerings in any catchment area.
High street supplier networks
We are building national and local networks of qualified suppliers that have products, services, tech and other offerings for local businesses.
Reimagining department stores
We are transforming large vacant units into mixed-use schemes with a carefully curated and actively managed mix of occupiers on the ground floor.
High street campaigns
We are supporting a variety of local and national campaigns that target positive change for high street businesses and local communities in the UK.
A new stronger high street is emerging
Local businesses
The gaps left by national chains reducing their footprint or disappearing altogether from the high street will be filled by new start-ups, local independents and growing brands; carefully positioned in the right locations to address unmet consumer needs and proactively supported to achieve their potential, every step of the way.
Risk and reward
Landlords, tenants and banks will share the risk and reward of being on the high street together, with rent tied to business performance, credit-scoring using new data sets and analytics to track and forecast returns for everyone.
High street innovation
Innovation will boom as we enter a new era of connected commerce and communities full of enabling technologies that improve the high street customer experience or the performance of businesses trading on it. The next generation of high street entrepreneurs will emerge with the space and support they need to test, validate and scale-up their offerings.
High street plans
Each high street will have a dynamic data-driven plan with the optimal mix of Class E, residential and other commercial uses to fulfil it over time. Units will be repurposed, lease agreements will be flexible, planning laws will continue to evolve and local authorities will support the change like never before.
Local Champions
Effective collaboration will become the norm not the exception, with Local Champions on every high street who are empowered to lead locally and connect the dots between local businesses, landlords, authorities, residents, workers, visitors and other high street stakeholders.
Redeveloping real estate
High street units of all shapes and sizes will be traded, redeveloped and optimised, creating huge wealth as £100billions of distressed or undervalued property assets rise again. High streets will be reimagined and regenerated from the bottom up, creating mixed use spaces that we feel proud to live, work, shop and play within.
We call this ‘High Street 3.0’ and we are focused on enabling parts of this vision in every town, city, village, market and shopping centre across the UK.
Successful high streets benefit everyone. The more of us who join the stronger we all become.