Window of Opportunity

We hope to work together to research and pilot alternative ways for individuals and organisations to access space on the HIgh Street, this will be done by providing varying levels of funding to access our pop up space at 107 Cornwall Street to trial ideas and projects that would benefit from a High Street presence, but are not yet developed enough to take on a space under normal rental and lease requirements.

We will undertake this in 4 ways:

Real Ideas to bring some existing projects to the collaboration for us to work with.
Nudge to bring some existing projects to the collaboration for us to work with.
Vacancy Atlas to bring some existing projects to the collaboration for us to work with.
Vacancy Atlas will administer an Open Call for additional projects and ideas to come forward to work with us.

This will be a pilot research project that will hopefully identify ways that our organisations can continue to work together.
We hope to find new ways of bringing projects to the High Street, trialing different models in a safe space for Vacancy Atlas as the space providers, Real Ideas and Nudge as collaborators and the users of the space under the programme. This means we can trial innovative models of space usage, ultimately understanding the alternative offers that are successful. These can then be offered more widely to potential space users of our pop up shop and inform how we continue to collaborate together.

We will undertake research and collect data during the pilot stage, developing plans and outcomes with each user of the space, and reflecting on these afterwards collectively. We will work with pop members to understand the demand for spaces on the High Street, and aim to understand what support they require to achieve this. We will publish a small document aiming to help those to understand how we can help them, and how they can help us utilise our space on the High Street in a way that works for everyone. This will include assessing the financial costs in a more transparent way with space users, aiming to encourage user ownership and understanding of the model we are piloting.

This work will also inform thoughts on wider use of alternative models of space usage by individuals and organisations throughout Plymouth. This pilot will inform how we collectively work together in the future to deliver and support these types of projects.