Our high streets must change to avoid being left behind forever
Gareth Jones, the founder of co-working and start-up support community Town Square Spaces, explains that high streets need to place people to attract shops, rather than trying to place shops to attract people...
In June, we learnt that high streets in Wales saw a decline in footfall of 6% in just one year, providing evidence to those who think the high street is dying – and fast.
People are quick to criticise local authorities, and while some planning decisions across the country have been questionable, blaming civil servants and local politicians is too easy – this is a wider trend.
A big part of the perceived sense of communities being “left behind” that several prominent politicians talk about is the number of places that are boarded-up. Anyone who grew up in these towns will remember how, even as recently as 10-15 years ago, every store was open. Walking down some high streets these days feels like they have no place in modern society and nobody wants to be there.
The classic “broken windows theory” that was questionably associated with the reversal of decades of worsening crime in New York certainly plays a role psychologically, and I saw this echoed after I published a controversial article about Wrexham in 2017.
There is a sense that things aren’t
getting better, in spite of record employment and reports of wage increases. I was sad to spend time with family members in north-west Wales who said they didn’t feel positive for the future of their children, especially as I continually hear from businesses that they struggle to recruit for highly paid positions in the very same communities.
We need new ideas that inspire community groups and the beancounters.
INNOVATION IS INEVITABLE
Online shopping is often a scapegoat for high-street decline, but the reality is that buying items online is a symptom, not a cause. Shopping online is easier, the customer has a wider selection and, frankly, it’s more convenient. The start-ups taking the spoils are offering something completely different, and are continually improving their service by learning from their customers.
Thread.com is an online platform which takes your preferences and sends you complete outfits in a single box. You choose what you want to keep and return the rest. Its American competitor Stitch Fix, which just launched in the UK, is valued at $2.5bn. Their main selling point is that the platform helps you make better fashion decisions by using artificial intelligence (AI) and they build a following by sharing articles that make you a smarter shopper.
Compare this to the randomness of walking into a store and having to wade through aisles of clothes in the hope that you stumble upon something suitable. It’s just not practical. You can’t expect a sales assistant to know all your previous choices and preferences and to then be able to select what will suit you best. They simply don’t have the data.
The breadth of choice provided by these companies means that both provincial and major high streets have no chance to compete. Services like Doddle make it, well, very easy to return anything you’ve decided you don’t need, so even if the AI makes a bad decision you can easily get a refund. Far easier than trying to persuade a customer service advisor to give you your money back if you change your mind.
In the many community Facebook groups that towns across the country
have, residents discuss – or complain about – the state of their high streets, and a regular topic is the rates bill that puts off small businesses.
When we were looking for premises to open our co-working space in Wrexham in partnership with Business Wales, we found there was far more to the issue than the rates.
Before 2008, property in the UK was a high-performing investment – and lots of organisations like banks and high-street brands sold their assets at the peak of their value to international investment groups and pension funds. A decade on, since many of these brands have moved on, and as high-street banking disappears, these spaces have lost their value and are now a burden to our pensions and show no signs of a reversal in fortunes.
Unless we can find a way to address this, our high streets are going to stay empty for decades to come, with buildings falling further into an irreversible state of disrepair.
Some local authorities are taking advantage of historically low-cost debt and picking up major properties that the private sector has given up on. But when long-term anchor tenants like House of Fraser, Debenhams and Boots – with over 500 years of combined trading history – are all reportedly at risk, it is safe to say that a new strategy is needed to turn these assets into profit.
SO WHAT’S THE ANSWER?
In February 2019, the think-tank Centre for Cities published a report on the trend of high-street and city decline. It suggested that while places like Newport and Wigan had high streets that were struggling, places such as Cardiff or Manchester were thriving. It found that the more successful cities had fewer shops, but had (through investment) highskilled jobs based in the city centres, which meant that the increased footfall created a consumer market for restaurants, bars and other leisure activities.
The report made three key recommendations:
■ Investment should be made to make city centres more attractive places for businesses and employees;
■ City-centre exemptions should be made to prevent commercial-to-residential conversions in order to protect valuable office space;
■ More investment in skills for residents in cities is necessary to create the educated workforce that future city centres need in order to thrive.
While some issues raised by the report are more debatable – for example, what kinds of investment result in a more educated workforce and how that equates to high-skilled jobs – the overall thrust of the report rings true. Instead of placing shops to try to attract people, we should be placing people to attract shops.
In America, former Google exec Matt Dunne is leading an initiative focused on creating tech hubs across rural states to bring people back to the high street through co-working spaces.
Last year, the co-working magazine Deskmag shared research which showed that co-working members contribute more than £10 a day each to local businesses. This contribution to the foundational economy can make a huge impact – and opening unused commercial spaces up to communities and small businesses can deliver huge value and, crucially, generate footfall for our high streets.
If people are working and living on our high streets, they create demand. They need that morning coffee, or lunch, or they want to grab a drink or go shopping after work.
There are many spaces that have failed by taking an office, providing an internet connection and calling it co-working. Real co-working is driven by community, and those communities need support to thrive.
If towns across Wales took this proactive approach to community-building, we could be looking at a reinvention of the high street which sets a new standard globally in line with our world-leading Wellbeing of Future Generations and Foundational Economy policies.
HOW DO WE DO THAT?
Towns that have been able to work collectively, such as Crickhowell, those that have a clear sense of identity, like Hay-on-Wye, and those that embrace culture such as Caerphilly with its concerts in the castle, are creating new experiences for the public.
We need to understand whether public money is being used to buy assets with a future, to avoid already stretched local councils from being burdened with buildings that have no interest.
We need to review the conditions getting in the way of a high-street revival. Local authorities are making big investments across the UK in property that the private markets don’t have faith in, but is perceived as having public importance.
These decisions need to be backed by strong research to understand how valuable the assets are, and how initiatives like enterprise zones with their discounted rates and other strategies could make a real difference in regenerating our town centres.
Perhaps most importantly, those communities that rely on and are passionate about their town centres need to be a part of the conversation, to understand the vision for where they will raise their families, and to appreciate the challenges that politicians and civil servants face.
How our towns look are a reflection of our own self-esteem. Without that evidence, we may see these spaces in a similar state for decades to come, with a continued sense that important communities across the country are being left behind.
Walking down some high streets these days feels like they have no place in modern society and nobody wants to be there...