Campaign calls for high street discount scheme
Retail campaigners are calling for an Eat Out to Help Out-style scheme to boost beleaguered independent shops when they finally reopen on April 12.
Campaign group Save The Street – backed by figures including retail expert Mary Portas and beauty entrepreneur Charlotte Tilbury – have called on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to support the sector by offering customers 50% off the cost of goods at independent retailers up to a price of £10.
They suggest such a scheme could run for one month this summer with discounts available to shoppers from Monday to Wednesday only, and limited to independent enterprises with fewer than 10 employees that sell through physical stores.
Like the Eat Out to Help Out restaurant scheme of August 2020, the Government would reimburse retailers for the discount – with the scheme being paid for with a levy on online retailers or draw on the £1.8bn in business rates relief which has been returned by major supermarkets.
UK stores are now down £27bn in lost sales during the three English lockdowns and related closures in the other nations, according to British Retail Consortium figures, with 67,000 retail jobs lost between December 2019 and 2020.
Ms Portas said: "Covid-19 has chipped away at the brilliant diversity of our high streets up and down our country.
"We need to act now and harness the support, need and love that people have for our high streets. A scheme like this will bring a vital lease of life back to the places that mean so much to us all."