The news of high profile retail companies going into Administration this month, Jessops and HMV followed hot on their heels by Blockbuster, has opened up further discussions about the High Street and its apparent demise.
The generally aired view is that the High Street is dying and we need to stop shopping on-line with corporate (non-tax paying) giants such as Amazon, and stop going to out of town superstores run by vicious land owning local farmer haters, Tesco, or we will never see the shops returning and our High Streets will never be the same again.
As usual, the argument is put as a false dichotomy; we have ‘baddie’ consumers who don’t support the High Street shops (not to be confused with the ‘local’ shops I must add) and the ‘goodie’ consumers who shop ethically, consciously and discerningly. The argument is framed simply about what type of consumers we are – as opposed to an open exploration as to why we consume, what we consume or why this is so important.
If the argument is that the High Street will collapse without the retailers, then where is the discussion about community and what it means to live in a community? Yes, shops play a part in a thriving town centre but maybe we need to start realising that they are a part of it and not the part. What if town centres were actually about a mix of community activities and local shops?
How is the demise of a few bloated retail outfits at the end for the Town Centre?
I am yearning for a debate to unfold that can help me formulate my thoughts on this. But the current perspectives on the “High Street” are unsatisfactory.
I would like to see us having a wider debate about that nature of society, about community and what those concepts really mean and ought to mean. What is a town or village centre actually for? What purpose does it serve, outside of the current narrow role of being a retail centre, a glorified cathedral for the worshippers of Mammon?
I can’t see us as a society changing all of our habits against the needs of retailers even if some of those retailers want us to retain shopping habits that we have outgrown. This means that there has to be more creative thinking, a much broader approach to the discussion than the ‘good consumer’ vs ‘bad consumer’ theory which is naïve and unhelpful. Our consuming behaviour has changed beyond recognition; for example, much as I wanted to go to HMV for Christmas presents for my teenagers, all their music and films are downloaded! That is the way it is done now regardless of whether or not my generation has fantasies about record shops and the way things used to be.
Surviving in any business is all about being on your toes, offering the absolute best, serving customers in a way they want to be served. I want us to start to understand what it means to be a Community without national retail uniform shops that I would personally argue have turned the High Street into dull, invisible streets of ‘sameness’ with a dollop of dull. Changing is the new standing still!
What are your thoughts about our High Streets and how we can widen the debate to embrace a different ideology?
About Lisa
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Lisa is the founder and owner of Lisa Cherry Ltd, an organisation that’s the culmination of all she’s passionate about.
I fully agree with you that the debate about the “High Street” has got things totally out of perspective. In the first place I don’t believe there is any such thing as “the high street” but there are a number of different ones depending upon the context in which we are talking. A lot has to do with size and location – the village high street, the small town high street, the large town high street, the city centre high street, the local district high street and the shopping mall. Added to that all of the debate is about retail on those high streets and not about the high street as an evolving entity with many different roles at different times. Shopping habits have changed and supermarkets, garden centres and shopping malls now dominate. The village shopping parade, like the one my parents had a shop on back in the mid 1950s have disappeared (maybe to be replaced by a village community shop), the small towns, unless they have a significant tourism presence are going the same way and even larger places like Swindon have run down town centres as a result of moving the shopping out of town.
The high streets (plural) continue to evolve and thank goodness that they do. There seems to be too much of “trying to go back to how things were” in the current debate (Mary Portas included) and not enough how we want the future to look and how we get there. The sooner the high street debate moves away from shops and to what we want our different high streets for, the better
Wooaaah! Just need to be steady about going too far too fast here. We have thriving towns with no empties (or very few) and people opening new shops all the time. We need to ask how and why. We also have structural issues that need (and are in some cases already) adjusting around rents and rates and parking charges. Let’s do that and see what difference it make. You make a good point about different high streets of different sizes in different parts of the country and with different needs and opportunities. The danger of the ‘death of the high street’ gloom being engendered is that we get government (national and local) making changes that make it harder to build on what we have that’s good!
Hi Iain
I’m fully with you on promoting high street success and learning from the things that are done well. The Food Festival in Thame is something that started on a very small scale but has now become a great event on the back of one person acting as the driving force and I’m sure there are other things that have happened in Oxfordshire towns along similar lines that we should be sharing among them. However, with the exception of Witney where retail turnover has grown by 40% as a result of the Woolgate extension and Marriotts Walk, supermarkets have been the only real growth area that has been sustained.
I prefer to look at shops to let rather than empty ones as people get tied in to leases. A quick survey of the main 15 towns in the county revealed nearly 250 shops to let (80 of them in Banbury) and heading for 100 retail businesses for sale. Far from suggesting success that tells me a significant number of them are struggling and need major changes from national and local government and from landlords if the rate of loss of shops on the high street is not going to increase and our need to re-think what they are for become more urgent.
To put that in context there are 2 empty shops on Burford high street and another that would be empty if the landlord had not extended the cheap rubbish he has for sale next door in to it. Further there are 3 businesses for sale. Looking at one of those – English Table – the economics tell you why. Turnover £75,000 (I’ve assumed net of VAT) It’s gross profit is 48% – £36,000, rent is £21,500 and rates £5,000 leaving £9,500 to pay the staff. The rent is due for review in 18 months, there is £30,000 of stock and the owner wants £37,500 for the business. It doesn’t work – another empty shop?
Or a shop you might know in Faringdon – Presentation Gifts run by a lady who has done a lot to promote Faringdon high street and her shop – sales until a year ago were £63,000 (guess that will have declined this year), Gross Profit £35,000 (a much higher % than I think is sustainable), Rent £7,000, Rates £3,000 leaving £25,000 to cover all other costs. My guess is the stock is over £20,000 and the vendor wants £15,000 for the business. It doesn’t stack up as an economic proposition.
So lets learn from the good, not play King Canute about the problems, lobby for something to be done to re-balance the playing field (why should Burford Garden Centre sell all that the high street does and pay 10% of the rates that it would be doing if it were there, why does the local shop that has 2 parking places pay business rates on them and Sainsburys get it’s car park for free) and get thoughtful people to decide what they want to keep and what they want/need to change given that the Government has no money to spend?
Hi Keith and thanks for your comments….I totally agree that the debate has to shift and the more people start to have a creative discussion the sooner we can move forward!
Like this…especially the bit about creative thinking. The good thing is that so many people all around the country have tuned into the debate about our towns and high streets which is why I think they have such a big future. I’d also say we need to take care not to get taken in totally by the ‘death of the high street’ gloomsters. There is a huge amount of innovation, imagination and sheer hard work driving our high streets. Some have no empty shops or very few and actually need more retail space. Let’s ask why. People continue to open new shops in our towns – even in the toughest climate anyone can remember. Let’s hear from them too. I agree about looking at more town centre homes and community uses, but would be concerned to send a message to the planners that we need go too far in that direction too quickly!
Hi Iain…. understanding what works and why is a really good place to start and I can see that some town centres really thrive so it from them that we can learn and more fruitful debate can be had. Thanks for commenting and choosing to be part of a discussion on here :0)
I think people ARE willing to embrace the high street if it will benefit them. A lot of recent research has shown if retailers offer a personalised service, customers are likely to return and choose them over less expensive rivals.