At the request of the UK Government and after 6 months of consultations with retailers, councils and trade bodies, Mary Portas published her report on the state of our nation’s high streets on Tuesday 13th December 2011, with the statement that high streets are at ‘crisis point’.
Whilst out-of town supermarkets and retail parks have grown by 30% in the past decade, retail space in towns and cities has fallen by 14% and approximately 25,000 stores have closed their doors in the last eleven years.
Mary Portas’ report aims to determine ways in which our high streets can survive and succeed through the struggling economy, the ever-growing popularity of internet shopping, long into the future. Part of this will involve urging town centre retailers to become more diverse and provide customers with personal service and quality, individual products in order to compete with the larger chain stores.
She believes that the ‘traditional’ high street of days gone by, with the local butcher, baker and grocer, is unlikely to ever return; however, the way to revitalise the UK’s high streets and put the heart back into towns and cities is to create a centre that offers people places for culture, socialising, learning, creativity, health and wellbeing, as well as shopping.
28 recommendations for a revitalised town centre
1. Put in place a “Town Team”: a visionary, strategic and strong operational management team for high streets
2. Empower successful Business Improvement Districts to take on more responsibilities and powers and become “Super-BIDs”
3. Legislate to allow landlords to become high street investors by contributing to their Business Improvement District
4. Establish a new “National Market Day” where budding shopkeepers can try their hand at operating a low-cost retail business
5. Make it easier for people to become market traders by removing unnecessary regulations so that anyone can trade on the high street unless there is a valid reason why not
6. Government should consider whether business rates can better support small businesses and independent retailers
7. Local authorities should use their new discretionary powers to give business rate concessions to new local businesses
8. Make business rates work for business by reviewing the use of the RPI with a view to changing the calculation to CPI
9. Local areas should implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres and we should have a new parking league table
10. Town Teams should focus on making high streets accessible, attractive and safe
11. Government should include high street deregulation as part of their ongoing work on freeing up red tape
12. Address the restrictive aspects of the ‘Use Class’ system to make it easier to change the uses of key properties on the high street
13. Put betting shops into a separate ‘Use Class’ of their own
14. Make explicit a presumption in favour of town centre development in the wording of the National Planning Policy Framework
15. Introduce Secretary of State “exceptional sign off ” for all new out-of-town developments and require all large new developments to have an “affordable shops” quota
16. Large retailers should support and mentor local businesses and independent retailers
17. Retailers should report on their support of local high streets in their annual report
18. Encourage a contract of care between landlords and their commercial tenants by promoting the leasing code and supporting the use of lease structures other than upward only rent reviews, especially for small businesses
19. Explore further disincentives to prevent landlords from leaving units vacant
20. Banks who own empty property on the high street should either administer these assets well or be required to sell them
21. Local authorities should make more proactive use of Compulsory Purchase Order powers to encourage the redevelopment of key high street retail space
22. Empower local authorities to step in when landlords are negligent with new “Empty Shop Management Orders”
23. Introduce a public register of high street landlords
24. Run a high profile campaign to get people involved in Neighbourhood Plans
25. Promote the inclusion of the High Street in Neighbourhood Plans
26. Developers should make a financial contribution to ensure that the local community has a strong voice in the planning system
27. Support imaginative community use of empty properties through Community Right to Buy, Meanwhile Use and a new “Community Right to Try”
28. Run a number of High Street Pilots to test proof of concept
Are you prepared to save Retford high street?
Mary Portas’ report provides government departments, councils and trading bodies with ideas and plans that are designed to help rejuvenate the country’s struggling town centres. However, her 18 point plan isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if local people don’t start supporting their community’s independent traders and shopping in their town’s high streets again.
Of course, we fully understand that price is everything, especially in difficult economic times. But is saving a few pounds worth the loss of our country’s high streets?
Support your local Retford independent retailers and Buy Local!