High street fund has been 'misallocated', MP claims Rather, it has allocated the money based on all empty non-domestic buildings across a local authority area, including offices, business parks and factories. Mr Danczuk said that when the Government's list is matched against figures for empty shops in town centres issued by another source - the Local Data Company - it shows that "millions of pounds have been issued to areas that don't have an empty shops problem." He said: "This just shows the Government has no idea of what's going on in town centres. Nearly forty per cent of local authorities awarded money have a less than national average empty shops rate. He added that his constituency of Rochdale has 45 empty shops in the town centre and "didn't get a penny." The Coalition has been in power for nearly two years now and you have to ask whether they're serious about trying to tackle problems on the high street. "If they haven't even got the right data on empty shops then they can hardly claim to be doing everything possible to support town centres," said Mr Danczuk. A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said they stood firmly by their methodology, saying: "Business rates data is by far the most accurate at reflecting the number of empty business premises, and is provided by councils themselves. To use any other data would be to short-change councils whose high streets face the greatest challenges and who were worst affected by last year's riots.