Rotherham’s town center, where vape shops, nail shops and charity shops now dominate the retail mix, is 24% vacant. Nationally, vacancy at out-of-town retail parks stands at 4.8%. For Dan Johnson, co-founder of Crafty Vintage in Whalley, Lancashire, that gap is no mystery: it is the product of 40 years of planning policy.
Britain had a single out-of-town retail park in 1981 and 385 by 1996, Johnson notes. Parkgate, which opened in 1987, drew warnings from MPs that such developments would “disembowel” towns and villages, and Johnson argues that is what happened. Policy has since gone a step further, he adds, by making home delivery cheaper than shopping at a retail park: up to 3 billion parcels a year now land on British doorsteps, and not one of them passes through a town center.
Andy Burnham’s £210 million for high streets is welcome, Johnson says, but it is a one-off response to a structural problem. What a town center needs, in his view, is a reason for people to walk into it every week without being told to.
A levy on doorstep deliveries
Johnson’s proposal, submitted as written evidence to a Commons inquiry by the housing, communities and local government committee into revitalizing high streets, would add £1 to every parcel delivered to a residential address and charge nothing if the parcel is collected from a shop, locker or pickup point in town. The money would be ringfenced by law and returned to the council area where the parcel landed, with 60% directed to transport and 40% to markets and high streets.
The pound itself is not the point, Johnson says — the exemption is. The cheapest way to receive a parcel would then involve walking into a town center, which he argues would do more for Rotherham than any grant.
Rewards for spending locally
In Hastings, East Sussex, Barry Ashley runs the Grumpy Cook, a community-focused cafe, and says he has seen firsthand how hard it is for independent businesses to survive, particularly in communities where disposable income is already stretched. He recently launched My Local First, a loyalty and rewards platform that brings independents together: customers earn rewards for spending locally, discover other independent businesses and gain a reason to return, while businesses take part for £10 a month and pay no commission on their sales to the platform.
High streets cannot thrive, Ashley argues, if the people living around them cannot afford to take part in their local economy. His group is also developing ways to connect affordable food with discreet community support. Councils and government grants alone cannot be expected to regenerate town centers, he says, and individual businesses cannot compete with multinational corporations on their own. My Local First will not solve every problem facing Britain’s high streets, he concedes, but it represents something he believes has been lost sight of: communities taking responsibility for their own local economies.
“Perhaps the answer isn’t simply saving our high streets. Perhaps it’s giving people a reason to believe in them again,” Ashley says.
Community-led projects already delivering
Matthew Mckeague, chief executive of the Architectural Heritage Fund, points to the government’s Hope on the High Street strategy, which includes community-led schemes the fund has helped support. High Street West in Sunderland took a mixed-use approach to derelict shops and delivered a cafe, a music venue and workspaces. In Bacup, Lancashire, Valley Heritage’s development divided a Grade II listed former bank into coworking space and affordable housing.
Equally important, Mckeague argues, is empowering communities that are passionate about their own environment. Many town centers remain challenging, but a growing number offer a more positive future and could be replicated elsewhere, he says.
Housing, services and green space
Helen Roberts of Sheffield argues that saving the British high street means accepting that retail can no longer be its primary purpose. Councils should acquire vacant or persistently underused sites and, where appropriate, replace poor-quality empty buildings with well-insulated, low-rise homes for renters and young professionals. New developments could be designed from the outset so that extra floors or modular homes can be added later as demand grows — costing more initially, she acknowledges, but reducing the disruption and expense of future expansion.
Housing alone will not create a thriving neighborhood, Roberts adds. Homes should be interspersed with services and spaces that people genuinely need: walk-in health and mental health support, childcare, community and arts spaces and other local amenities. She makes the case for locating services closer to the communities they serve rather than expecting residents to travel elsewhere to find support, and for more and better green spaces — trees, planting and small parks — that give people somewhere pleasant to spend time while responding to climate change and air pollution.
Bring people back and businesses will have a reason to return too, she argues: cafes, hairdressers, independent shops and other everyday services. Councils should use planning and licensing powers carefully to encourage a balanced mix of businesses and avoid excessive concentrations of premises that can undermine the health and character of an area.
The high street will not be saved by restoring the past, Roberts concludes. Its future could lie in becoming a place to live, meet, access services and build community, with retail as one part of a much broader purpose.