Save our shops

Action needed on high streets

HIGH STREETS have suffered grievously in recent years, with once-thriving town and city centres being blighted by shop closures and a gradual draining-away of trade.

This has left many sinking into dereliction and decay in the face of the online shopping onslaught on their businesses, a process that was accelerated by pandemic lockdowns which kept customers away.

Against that backdrop, it is welcome that tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech will contain measures to aid high streets, including proposals to give councils the powers to force landlords to rent out empty shops, and allowing temporary pavement cafes to become permanent.

Yet these measures do not go far enough and fail to address the two key factors that present the greatest threat to shopping streets – the high level of business rates and unfair competition from the internet.

Bricks-and-mortar businesses are paying much higher rates than out-oftown warehouses sending out packages ordered online, and retailers have long called for their internet rivals to faces sales taxes to stop them undercutting prices in shops.

If the Government is serious about reviving high streets, these fundamental underlying factors have to be tackled by ministers. However many additional powers are given to councils, local authorities cannot arrest the decline on their own.

It is essential that high streets are saved. They are the heart and soul of our communities, places not only to shop, but where people meet and socialise. The Government needs to be much more radical in its approach, or the creeping decay will only grow worse.