General Discussion
New shop and restaurant in town..?
Good to see a new shop "Curious" in town next to the strand cafe; and I see the old Salamis is being tarted up and are advertising for kitchen staff - does anyone know what's planned for here? Both good news for the strand hopefully.
That is really good news about the shop and the restaurant! I wish something could be done with the old Lloyds chemist as it really is an eye sore!
Margraet,
Something can be done with Lloyds, all you need to do is agree to pay £15,000 a year rent £9,000 a year business rates and sign a 10 year agreement then you could make it look nice again.
Thanks Andysport, no wonder it is empty!! I would have thought it better to drop rent and rates and have the building used than to have it sitting empty!
The freehold are generally far and wide, you may find the odd one being owned by the retailer
You can undertake a land registry search to find out if you want to know it's about £8 per property
The co op funeral service sold off a couple of freeholds last year, bet fred and a couple of cafes are apparently owned by a guy in Manchester, a cafe and charity bin oops I mean shop is owned by a restraunter from Cornwall
The owner of Bet Fred is a guy with the surname of Done and he comes from Manchester and also tried to get his bookies in another shop at some point but was refused permission,sopossibly he owns both
@Mcjrpc sadly, when i did make enquiries i was told that rates are calculated by reference to the level of rent. confirmation can be found by the extract below from gov.uk
"business rates are worked out by multiplying the ‘rateable value’ of your property (set by the valuation office agency) by the business rates multiplier (set by central government)."
As I understand it, the VO are highly influenced in their assessment by the rents derived from a property. A double whammy for Dawlish traders
I agree Mcjrpc, as a Council we should at least try to do more!
Thanks Andysport and Roberta for your updates, which leaves me wondering how many Dawlish traders actually live in or close to Dawlish!
It's a shame councils don't have powers to intervene when business properties remain unoccupied for a period of time. Ryders Bakery on Park Road is one such example, it's a disgrace. I now see an application has been made to convert it into flats, so leaving it vacant has eventually made it more valuable.
There's a planning reg or something similar somewhere that says (I think) something along the lines that a retail unit cannot be put to another use until after a set period of time that the retail unit has been empty.
Think along Brunswick. There used to be a shop there called Inspirations. The people who ran the shop moved out March 2009ish. Shop remained empty for some time, then, after a while, planning application submitted for it to be converted to a residential unit. Which it is now.
It might that similar fates ultimately await other retail units bounding either side of the lawn.
Just out of curiousity - why are the rents for retail units in Dawlish higher than those able to be charged in Teignmouth?
I'm told by old Dawlish hands that there was a time when our town was the more "up market" and economically vibrant of the two; and the market rents reflected that.
There are no mechanisms for Councils to interfere with the setting of rent levels, it is entirely at the perogative of the individual property owner.
The planning regulation Lynne refers to is most commonly used to justify change of use from pubs to residential. The property owner would be claiming lack of economic viability to justify the change.
Emotions shop is now for rent at £9800 a year now thats a tiny shop in comparrison to some so £9800 without planning for food seems expensive.
As I see it and new to the area, Teighnmouth attracts more people, there are more shosps and more shops come up for grabs,
Currently in Teignmouth I can see 4 shops empty for rent, 8 businsses for sale leasehold and 4 freehold, Dawlish 3 shops empty for rent, 0 businesses for sale leasehold or freehold.