Premium of 5,000 euros should attract new traders to Uccle
The municipality of Uccle is sad to see the vacancy rate in a number of its commercial streets increase. To settle in the municipality, you pay out a hundred premiums of up to 5,000 euros. Last week, the new circulation plan of the City of Brussels was an opportunity for the municipality to highlight the campaign again. Does Uccle outdo the city center like that?
Since the beginning of June, a campaign has been underway in Uccle to plan traders to open a business in Uccle. Does the municipal council want to anticipate the vacancy in the commercial districts? According to figures from the regional trade agency Hub.brussels, the percentage of vacant commercial properties in Uccle rose from 9.81 in 2018 to 11.91 in January 2022. An increase mainly due to the consequences of the covid crisis.
“Some neighborhoods are doing better than others,” Uccle’s alderman from Handel Valentine Delwart (MR) explains to BRUZZ. “Our existing trading cores in our trading cores on point.”
Diverse trade offer
Since 1 June, Uccle has received 3,000 euros in trade checks for every new trader who settles in an empty commercial building in Uccle-Centre, at Vanderkindere, Horzel or on the Waterloosesteenweg. “After all, with percentages of up to 15 percent, or more than 35 empty showcases, vacancy hits the hardest there,” says Delwart.
In addition to the location, a business must also correspond to the needs in the neighborhood in order to be entitled to the premium. “We want to use this to expand a diverse range and provide new companies with products and offers,” says Delwart.
Sustainability
The premium can be supplemented with an amount of 2,000 euros in checks for new businesses that intervene in checks for new businesses that deliver by bicycle to reduce their waste from selling sustainable products.
The trade checks can be used in the shops that are affiliated with the network ‘Uccle local trade checks’ and are given to future customers.
“There are already two businesses that have received the Prime Minister,” said Mayor Boris Dilliès (MR). It concerns tattoo parlor Crâne de Mal in Vanderkinderestraat and the future Basis base on Waterloosesteenweg, which will open its doors in September.
The campaign will run until the end of this year. The municipality has budgeted a hundred premiums of a maximum of 5,000 euros, the number of empty showcases.
Compete with Brussels?
“We have received about fifty questions so far, twenty of them in the last two weeks,” says Uccle mayor Boris Dilliès (MR). A monetary gain, which he attributes to the introduction of the new circulation plan in the Brussels area. Uccle’s MR councilor Aurélie Czekalski skilfully capitalized on feelings of dissatisfaction with the situation in the center by pointing traders to the Uccle invitation.
“To be clear, our campaign predates the entry into force of the circulation plan in Brussels,” Dilliès stipulates. “But since the introduction, many merchants are thinking about how to continue to reach their customers.” Wittamer is thus opening two new branches in Uccle, including one at Fort Jaco.
However, they do not compete with the city center in Uccle, according to alderman Delwart.
says Delwart.
“It would be a shame to lose that clientele. In Uccle, we hope that people from outside Brussels will continue to shop in our municipality. Hence the campaign, which should perpetuate the marketing dynamics in Uccle.”
“By the way, many stores that already have a branch in the center of Brussels are now opening a store in Uccle, because they notice that their customer base is no longer descending to the city center,” Delwart concludes the analysis.