We must rally round to save the UK’s high streets
THE NORTHERN & SHELL BUILDING NUMBER 10 LOWER THAMES STREET, LONDON EC3R 6EN Tel: 020 8612 7000 (outside UK: +44 20 8612 7000)
IHAVE so many happy memories of HMV that it was sad to hear it go into administration just before Christmas. Hours spent flipping through album covers and then CDs but now my music comes as downloads for a fraction of the price. I miss the accumulation of discs but they are just one more object that has been digitised and yet another familiar part of the high street gone for good.
If 2018 was bad enough for the high street, that trend looks set to accelerate this year. House of Fraser, Debenhams, Homebase, Maplins and other retail stalwarts were all hammered by the shift in shopping to the internet. Far lower business costs have allowed web retailers to offer bigger discounts and substantially undercut their high street rivals. Shoppers might like to try out purchases in real shops but increasingly seal the deal online. It has resulted in the greatest threat to the existence of the high street, but it is not all the fault of the internet.
In my home city of Bath, Jolly’s department store lies at the core of an historic retail centre that goes back to when Jane Austen shopped for bonnets. In one form or another, it has been trading since 1823 with its current premises opened in 1906. Now part of House of Fraser, its new owner Mike Ashby is in tough negotiations with Bath & North East Somerset council (B&NES) to substantially reduce the amount of rent and business rates it pays. If B&NES doesn’t back down, Jolly’s will close, ripping the retail heart out of the city. If B&NES does concede it will lose a chunk of its income revenue used to support local services. at work. It also seems odd that on the one hand so many councils are trying to get people to use local shops and yet on the other hand they are doing everything to discourage them from coming into town.
I once started a political party in Highbury, north London, to save our little shopping parade from rapacious parking charges. My campaign was triggered by seeing a shopper dash out of our local butcher’s, leaving unpaid for goods behind, because a parking warden was about to give him a ticket. I doubt if he ever came back.
To fight this, I stood as an independent councillor under the banner of “Local Freedom.” With the support of our neighbouring shopkeepers, I won the best part of 500 votes, not enough to take a council seat, but parking policy was subsequently modified to make it easier for shoppers to park and pop into shops.
I shouldn’t really have had to do all that just to get a more reasonable parking regime but since moving to Bath I’ve seen a local council again greedily ramp up charges to the detriment of local traders. Much of this bonanza is used to fund council services, but it has also been used to pursue a Green agenda of discouraging cars from coming into Bath.
If that wasn’t bad enough, B&NES now want to introduce a Clean Air Zone (CAZ) that will see drivers of older polluting vehicles charged £9 for the privilege of driving into the city. As one shopper put it, it will now cost her £13 with parking and CAZ charges just to walk through the door of a shop.
On top of sky-high rents and business rates, it’s little wonder that traditional high street traders, weighed down by all these misguided policies and costs, are struggling to compete with the tsunami of internet shopping sweeping over them. It really is the perfect storm that could see our high streets vanish forever as busy shopping centres.
Councils need to get real and cut rents and business rates on properties they own, slash parking fees and do away with questionable green policies that hamper local trade. Any income shortfall for vital services should be made up by central government grants.
The taxpayer will always ultimately foot the bill but I’d rather see money spent directly on social care rather than raised through policies that deteriorate my local shopping environment.
A‘Retail stalwarts were all hammered in 2018’
THRIVING high street is good for our health and wellbeing, enriching our social interaction. It is frequently the starting point for entrepreneurs – the great brands of the future – trying out their ideas.
The good news is that despite all the obstacles facing them, last year it was smaller traders that reported stronger high street growth of 13 per cent and 25 per cent online.
It is up to savvy shopkeepers to get creative and combine new retail trends with a strong online presence to make sure shopping carries on being one of our favourite activities.
But it is equally incumbent on government to do everything it can to practically help high street traders and not tax them out of existence.
It is not just the answer to create additional taxes for the online giants, but 2019 should be the year to end the outdated business rates model and give our high streets the chance to thrive once more.