Currently owners of vacant shops have a three-month exemption from business rates to allow time to upgrade stores as necessary and re-let to them to a new
Almost 2,000 more British independent stores were left empty in the first half of this year, as small businesses struggled to cope with rising inflation and the cost of living crisis.
The £150m sale of the upper floors of the John Lewis Oxford Street flagship to property developer Hines and Korea’s National Pension Services stalled this