A council-led effort to address the number of empty shops in Whitehaven is underway.
Cumberland Council is starting the process of contacting the landlords of several empty properties on King Street to give them a final chance to work with the council before taking enforcement action.
Nick Hayhurst, head of planning and place, will carry out property searches and will start by writing to the landlord of the worst property on the street, which poses the most safety risk, said a councillor.
Bransty councillor Joseph Ghayouba said he had spent months trying to get absent landlords to step up to no avail.
He said he privately wrote to some of the landlords on the street, but received no response.
He has since been working as a lead of the the empty properties sub group of the Whitehaven Town Centre Board to tackle the issue with the support of the wider council.
The board is chaired by Councillor Emma Williamson for Kells and Sandwith and Whitehaven & Workington MP Josh MacAlister.
Cllr Ghayouba said: “It’s been on my radar since I was elected. When you’re campaigning you have a lot of conversations with a lot of residents and whatever part of my ward I spoke too, the town centre came up quite a lot.
“Everybody just wants to see the town thrive, so I took on some work to see genuinely what the issues are.
“I’d been hearing of people that did genuinely want to open a space in the town and found it very difficult to get hold of the landlords even to just have a conversation with them to see if the property was available to take on.
“So it’s not that people don’t want to open things, It’s the fact that people can’t find out who owns the property or get in touch with them to try and open it.”
Earlier this week, Cllr Ghayouba led Mr Hayhurst to look at some of King Street’s worst properties and discuss the possible enforcement action the council can take using new powers recently granted by the Government.
These powers come from The Renters (Reform) Bill, which aims to give councils more tools to enforce the right to rent and crack down on criminal landlords.
Cllr Ghayouba said councils across the country were still figuring out how these powers can be applied – but that Cumberland Council was actively working on ways to make use of them.
He added: “I think it’s time the council got serious about managing landlords who don’t care about the state of their properties.
“That bottom end of King Street you have businesses trying to do their very best and you’ve got BEC doing their best with Whittles and they’re being brought down as a result of the irresponsible landlords.
“Then you’ve got the council putting money in to spend on public space bit at the top end of the street, so the council, the third sector and the small businesses are doing lots for the town and we need to tackle the absent landlords so they do their bit too.”
Cllr Ghayouba said that if the council was to pursue enforcement action, it could involve billing the landlords for essential work to be done to make the properties safe or pursing compulsory purchase of the properties.
He added: “We have two acts to do with building control that we can exercise to go after eyesore properties. Normally, they have to pose some kind of safety risk.
“So the main property in question has potential to pose a risk to its neighbouring property and it’s not entirely secure, so it could risk attracting things that would create a health and safety risk.
“We’re not saying the landlords have to fill these properties, but they have to at least make them tidy and secure.”
Cllr Ghayouba said he believed addressing the state of some of the empty properties on King Street is essential in helping the high street thrive.
He added: “We have to look at these empty properties as small pieces of a bigger picture. The work on Market Place to make it more inviting is great, but at the same time, walking up King Street you want the buildings to look nice too.
“It won’t happen overnight, and there are positives going on, but we need to sort these absent landlords out and at the same time, we also need to provide support for those that want to set up a business in the town.
“But we’ve got a council and MP that is serious about town getting back on its feet, so between us all I think we will start to turn the tide.
“I’m determined to get our town centre back on its feet and look forward to continuing to work with the town centre board on this.”
