Role of local landlords in small-town high streets – a study of Trowbridge, UK

Abstract

High streets are a vital part of national identity and infrastructure. Responses to high street decline need to encourage stakeholder engagement. The prominence of local retail landlords as a key potential stakeholder group in smaller towns has been overlooked. Through a case study of Trowbridge, a small town in the UK, this research investigates local landlords’ contributions towards countering high street decline and their attitudes towards the challenges of maintaining healthy small-town centres. Primary qualitative data are gathered through local inspection and semi-structured interviews with local landlords. Secondary quantitative data include ownership, vacancy and occupier type. Local landlords are of particular importance, despite engaging insufficiently with wider regeneration schemes. Local landlords demonstrate a strong awareness of the causes of high street decline and local issues. They also desire improvements to the current conditions of the high street, for both philanthropic and business reasons. The authors conclude that local landlords are a significant group with the credible potential to implement changes. This informs analyses of other towns struggling to reinvigorate their centres. While the case study provides a rich picture and the results are largely generalisable, further research is needed to understand more about the role of local landlords across similar towns with respective idiosyncrasies.