When a department store closes, a town can lose a familiar landmark, a meeting point and one of the main reasons people come into the centre. Finding a new occupier is part of the challenge. The bigger question is what would make the building useful to the town again.
That question ran through the first webinar from The High Street Consultancy, held on 10 November 2026. Graham Soult looked at how high streets are changing, Ben Stephenson explored different ways of reusing former department stores, and Kathryn Chiswell Jones of Artspace Lifespace shared what it takes to run one of those projects in practice.
Thank you to everyone who joined us and contributed to the discussion. You can watch the full webinar below. Here are three lessons about department store reuse that connected the presentations
Give people more reasons to come into town
In his opening presentation, Graham looked at how the mix of uses on our high streets has changed and what physical shops still do well.
At Untangled Yarns in Galashiels, for example – a business Graham worked with earlier this year – customers come to buy wool, but they also come to sit and knit together. Graham contrasted the scale of an independent shop like this with Fenwick in Newcastle, where the department store has kept evolving while retaining a strong local identity. In both cases, the experience gives people a reason to visit beyond the purchase itself.
That idea carried through to Kathryn’s presentation on Sparks Bristol. The project brings independent retail, education and creativity together in a former Marks & Spencer. It gives makers somewhere to sell their work and gives people somewhere to meet or spend time without having to spend money. When a town centre has several reasons to visit, it is less dependent on any one of them.
Work with the building and test what fits
Ben’s case studies showed how much the answer can vary from one building to the next. Deep floors with little natural light are often seen as a problem in former department stores. At the University of Gloucestershire’s city campus, the middle of the former Debenhams works well for lecture theatres, leaving space around the edges for uses that benefit from daylight.
Ben also looked at Shredenhams in Bristol, where an indoor skatepark and social venue have given young people another reason to come into the city centre. As he put it, “Temporary isn’t trivial.” A temporary use can give a building a purpose now and show who will use it and what they’ll come back for. That gives owners and councils something to work with before they commit to a longer-term plan.
Think about who can take it on and keep it going
Graham drew on his Retail Cupid work in Durham to make a practical point: a town can have empty shops and businesses keen to open, yet still lack the right space for those businesses. With a former department store, the gap between what is available and what an occupier can realistically take on can be especially wide.
Kathryn brought that challenge to life through Sparks. The project depended on several organisations bringing different skills to the building. She also discussed the barriers that can stop others from doing something similar, from rents and rates to complicated leases and the cost of making a space usable. The free Vacant Property Toolkit she introduced, developed with funding from Power to Change, gives community groups, creative organisations and property owners practical help with budgeting, risk assessments and building compliance.
The real test comes after the doors reopen. Can the people running the space afford to stay? Can they adapt it as local needs change? Do people have a reason to keep coming back? Those are questions to ask while there’s still time to shape the plans.
A former department store has a future when it gives the town something it needs and the people who run it a fair chance of making it last.
