In many city centres, huge amounts of property are held by pension funds, “investment portfolios” and “property holding groups” etc.

In their heyday, some of these shop units would be rented out for £20,000 a year. However, they’re no longer worth that.

If they are rented out for something like £4,000 a year (or lower), they would definitely be used - there’s plenty of tiny businesses, out of place shops that want a better location etc.

Unfortunately, from the vampiric property holding company’s perspective, if they rent the unit out at £4,000 a year, it’s only a £4,000 a year “asset” in their “property holding portfolio”.

If they keep the rent at £20,000 and nobody rents it, it’s still “worth £20,000” theoretically as an asset - and this imaginary money can be borrowed against, invested etc - so they can turn imaginary money into more imaginary money, and we have derelict shops.

Some politicians are scared of taking this on, because if done quickly, the bubble of “imaginary rent asset value” may cause another financial crash, or collapse of pension funds.

Anyway, really these places need a “if it’s left empty for 6 months” compulsory purchase order of the building for a very low price. There’s plenty of small businesses, community projects etc that are desperate for spaces at reasonable prices.

Anyway, this doesn’t cover every dead high street, but it’s certainly a lot of them.