Shaping the Future of Thanet's High Streets
Have Your Say on Proposed Rental Auction Scheme
Thanet District Council is committed to revitalising our high streets and town centres, ensuring they remain vibrant hubs for our community and local economy. To achieve this, we are proposing to implement the new legislation under the High Street Rental Auction (HSRA) scheme, a proactive approach to tackle the issue of long-term vacant commercial properties.
What is the High Street Rental Auction (HSRA) Scheme?
The HSRA is a permissive power granted to local authorities to bring persistently vacant premises back into active use. By facilitating a rental auction, we aim to connect landlords with potential tenants, injecting new life into empty units and boosting the overall high street experience. This scheme can also help overcome barriers where lender conditions might otherwise prevent market-rate tenancies.
How Will it Work?
For a property to be eligible for a High Street Rental Auction, it must be located on a designated high street or in a designated town centre and be considered suitable for a high-street use. These uses include:
- Shops or offices
- Services for visiting members of the public
- Restaurants, bars, pubs, cafés, and other food and drink establishments
- Public entertainment or recreation venues
- Communal halls or meeting places
- Manufacturing or industrial processes compatible with the above uses
Your Role in Designating Thanet's High Streets
A crucial first step in implementing the HSRA scheme is to designate the specific streets and town centre areas where this tool could be utilised. We believe that local knowledge is invaluable in this process. Therefore, we are now launching a 28-day community engagement period to gather your feedback on our proposed designated areas.
We want to hear from you about which streets and areas within Thanet you believe are most important to our local economy due to their concentration of high-street uses. Your insights will help us ensure that the HSRA scheme is targeted effectively to where it can have the greatest positive impact.
To help you visualize the proposed designated high streets and town centre areas, draft maps illustrating these locations are available for your review. You can access these images by clicking on the following links:
Phases
Community engagement period
We want to hear from you about which streets and areas within Thanet you believe are most important to our local economy due to their concentration of high-street uses. Your insights will help us ensure that the HSRA scheme is targeted effectively to where it can have the greatest positive impact. We invite you to review our proposed list and map of designated high streets and town centre areas. These are the streets we have thought of - please let us know if you don’t agree with any of them, or if we have missed any:
Margate
- Marine Terrace
- Marine Gardens
- The Parade
- High Street
- Queen Street
- High Street
- Cecil Square
- The Center
- Marine Drive
- New Drive
- Market Street
- Lombard Street
Cliftonville
- Northdown Road
Ramsgate
- York Street
- Harbour Street
- Harbour Parade
- Queen Street
- King Street
- High Street
During this 28-day period, we encourage you to share your comments and suggestions with us. We also encourage you to consult the maps as you consider and provide your feedback during the community engagement period.
You can also provide your feedback by:
- Email: propertyandassetmanagement@thanet.gov.uk
- Post: FAO: Property HSRA Community Engagement, Thanet District Council, Main offices, Cecil Street, Margate, CT9 1XZ
The community engagement period will run from Saturday 5 July 2025 to Friday 15 August 2025. All feedback received during this period will be considered before any final designations are made.
