Bathgate’s Town centre continues the buck the trend, with better occupancy than many towns across Scotland despite the fallout from the Covid lockdowns in the last 15 months.
In a report to the town’s Local Area Committee Nairn Pearson, BID and town centre manager revealed that the town’s vacancy rate was 7.1 per cent in April.
In his report Mr Pearson added: “To provide some context, Bathgate continues to position itself favourably in relation to wider national vacancy rates for Scotland (10.6 per cent) and UK (11.5 per cent) as based on the published Springboard national vacancy survey research. It should be observed that this is an improvement from the Bathgate recent peak vacancy of nine per cent back in July 2019.”
The findings come as one of Bathgate’s longest-standing businesses gets ready to shut its doors. Grant’s furniture shop on North Bridge Street closes at the end of the month as the directors have announced their retirement.
Bathgate town centre traders and businesses continue to be eligible to apply for capital grant assistance through the shop front improvement scheme. This supports with costs associated with making external property frontage improvements.
Enterprising Bathgate, the Bathgate Business Improvement District (BID) continues to support local businesses and traders during these challenging times of economic recovery.
It has been supported during May 2021 by council officers from Economic Development and Regeneration in their application submission to Scotland’s Towns Partnership through the third phase of Covid-19 funding. The BID is seeking around £10,000 via the BID Recovery and Development Fund, to assist with undertaking localised promotional and marketing activities in Bathgate town centre, from this month until March next year. This will aim to complement the Scotland Loves Local national campaign, by emphasising a ‘think local first’ and shop local message.
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