Local traders in Brixton have said they are struggling to retain customers amid rising costs.
Brixton town centre has been named in London’s first pilot to revitalise fading high streets under new powers granted by the Mayor of London.
Lambeth Council is preparing to auction off long-empty shops as retail vacancy rates hit a ten-year high of 26%, including Brixton’s key high streets.
Under the High Street Rental Auction (HSRA) scheme, councils can step in when commercial units have stood empty for more than 12 months, forcing landlords to lease them at auction with Grant funding set to cover survey and legal costs for successful tenants during the pilot.
But some traders argue the scheme fails to address the root problem to empty high streets: soaring rents and business rates.
“Shops are empty because of the rent,” Motiur Rahman, owner of Vera Cruz Lebanese Grill and Café in Brixton, said.
“Private landlords have put the rent up and since lockdown business rates have crept up.”
It’s not just independent landlords impacting small businesses. Transport for London (TFL) is one of the publicly owned companies in Brixton that operate as commercial landlords. Last month, Brixton News, the kiosk inside the Tube station closed due to rent increases.
TFL raised the rent on the kiosk’s unit from £40,000 a year to £125,000 a year due to a proposed expansion of the space. It was something the brother-duo who ran the business for 36 years could no longer afford and had to shut up shop.
The kiosk’s expansion was in the name of much-needed repairs, according to a spokesperson for TFL who said: “Our aim is to make sure we provide high-quality spaces for businesses at a reasonable market rate.”
Even Lambeth Council’s commercial tenants are shutting up shop. Janet Edwards Florist has been in the community for almost 15 years, but the store is preparing to close this year due to the financial pressures of rent prices and business rates.
The area always had thriving high streets until recently, according to Gianluca Rizzo, the managing director of Brixton Business Improvement District (BID).
A number of customers that used to be there no longer are, according to Rizzo.
“Before lockdown, you couldn’t walk through the market without bumping into people,” he said.
“We always had a supply of new business owners to take up local premises, but in the last 18 months it’s disappeared”
According to BID, Brixton has the highest number of vacancies in the borough with 113 empty premises in the town centre and 60% of them vacant for over a year.
Rahman added that more than rising utility bills, competition from large supermarket chains and a lack of diversity in licensed businesses have compounded the pressure.
“Today you’ll see a parade of six shops and three of them will be off-licenses or a chain” added Rahman, who believes a thriving high street requires some restriction. “The council have allowed too many of the same types of businesses.”
While the council hopes the HSRA scheme will breathe life back into Brixton’s high street, traders say only sustainable rents will keep local businesses there for the long term.
“The scheme would grant local businesses and community groups the ‘right to rent’ empty commercial lots at market prices” said MP Alex Norris.
“Brixton is all about small independents and microbusinesses, there’s a risk we tip over to larger chains, a vast majority of our businesses are independents and they’re the fabric of our community, there is a threat of even more high streets will just look the same,” said Rizzo.
A spokesperson for TFL added: “We know that there many challenges facing small and medium businesses and if any of our tenants have concerns about, or face difficulty paying, their rent we will always look for ways to support them and their business where we can.”
Lambeth Council had no further comments. Information on the scheme in partnership with Mayor of London can be found here.
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