Leadership Spotlight: Iain Scott of Can Do Places

Can Do Places aims to breathe new life into empty properties by encouraging communities to take them over as spaces where they can work, create and trade. Thomas Barrett spoke to their CEO, Iain Scott, about how the loss of the high street can present a golden opportunity for communities.

How did Can Do Places come about?

The Scottish government did a review of Scottish town centres and I was part of that. Somebody said the problems were due to business rates and parking. I said no, the world is going in the opposite direction. Let’s turn these empty buildings into places where people can work together.

There’s at least £6bn of empty property in Scotland and 48% of home-based Scottish businesses plan to grow. I picked up on a trend and thought big companies are leaving the high street but at the same time we’ve got more and more people working for themselves, however, it’s often a lonely and isolating experience.

So I asked what happens if you turn a building into a collaborative space? It’s more than coworking. It’s all about people interacting, from plumbers to programmers.

It’s beginning to take off.  Economic people said ‘that’s not going to have an impact.’ We said trust us, this makes a huge difference. It’s breathing new life into redundant buildings.

Are landlords hesitant to allow their buildings to become Can Do Places?

Very often the buildings are derelict and falling down and these can be fraught with difficulties. In other cases, local authorities or private companies want the most amount of money they can get, and the sticking point is an unrealistic expectation on price.

Early on we got a specialist who said from a balance sheet perspective, we have too many people owning properties that are grossly overvalued. We’ve had to use persistence when negotiating.

Do councils give tax breaks?

They are internally feuding on this kind of thing. Their estate departments want the most amount of money for their property but sometimes they say they can have it for a pound, then as soon as people show any interest in a building the price goes up.

This is beginning to change and community benefits are starting to be recognised more than price.

Where do you see Can Do Places in 10 years?

This is revolutionary stuff. It’s pioneering in terms of community development and economic development. There’s an explosion of collaborative work and home-based working, so these workers can generate something that plays back to the community and breathes new life into buildings and town centres.

It’s almost moving the high street back to mediaeval times with market towns and trading towns. Retail has to go, it’s not about that anymore. It’s so much more interesting to see a building and its multipurpose uses, planning thinking is behind the curve but you can reinvent our towns.

The policy is not in line with the economic trends. People aren’t going to Woolworths or BHS– they’re gone. So why go to town centres? You go to find something unique, meet people and interact. We’ve always maintained that there’s still a market for markets, where people can make and sell things.

Execution is harder because people haven’t got their heads around the potential yet, but Can Do Places is perfect for a host of people because you get the plumber speaking to the programmer who says ‘I can design an app for you for that.’

What attracts people to the concept?

The beauty of a Can Do Place is there are many reasons for people taking part. It might be because they are lonely, they want out of the house, or their business is too big to work at home. That’s our ethos and concept that people can buy into intellectually. Then you help them through legislation and workshops so they can deliver it.

The market is there. There has been a huge growth in self-employment and loneliness and we know collaboration grows businesses and local economies.

Should we mourn the loss of the high street?

We should mourn because it kills part of the social fabric. But we should have the opportunity to replace them very quickly with the new market that’s out there, but it’s not easy because all policy and infrastructure is geared towards the old economy. We are not moving fast enough to support this collaborative economy.

Is the UK too dependent on the service sector?

The problem is planning legislation and the consistent failure of planning thinking to look at the local economy. If you take any planning event, or regeneration, they never look at new business generation. They have business consultations that look at existing business but not new businesses.

An economy dies if it doesn’t have new businesses created. The death of the high street is because we have failed to nurture new business creation and community development on our high street.