End of Year Review - High Street There is nothing particularly new in this article but its a good summary of the issues and its always a joy to see Eric Raviliouss marvellous shopfront illustrations. Here are some comments which are my opinions, information: • High Streets will be different; they will change, as they always have. They need to become a social space again, where people can interact not virtually but actually. • Frome Town Council does an annual survey of what shoppers do and want • When the Portas Report came out the Frome Town Team concluded that there was nothing in it within our powers locally that we were not already doing. We are waiting to find the outcomes of the celebrity regeneration in the 12 Portas towns; latest reports say that 10 out 12 were declining measured by the number of empty shops. • Mary Portass recommendation of a full reform of Business Rates to provide a level playing field between High Street shops and Out of Town (OOT) stores and the warehouses of online retailers hasnt happened. In the Autumn Statement it was kicked into the long grass with a review due to report in 2016. For Frome this is less of a problem than some towns as most of the shops in town should be getting Business Rate Relief which is being extended. • There are a remarkable lack of research (available in the public domain) about what types of regeneration schemes are effective, and of the effect of different types of development. There is some research, and although some of it is funded by Tesco it is still done by independent academics; I know and trust them. They have reviewed their previous results and their latest review of the evidence is valuable (see below). • BIS and the DCLG are now funding some research with ATCM, through The Great British High Street, including a recent review of parking which we will ask MDC to look at as part of a car parking review that is now due. Value for money, the parking experience, choice and technology are the main factors. We can do better on the first. • The Future High Street Forum has also produced a summary of the evidence available I High Street Performance and Evolution. • The key issue is footfall – that is people as town centres don;t provide Drive-Thru facilities and the more people walk along the pavement the ore likely it is they will go into a sop and spend money. • There is good research that convenience stores (even those run by large retailers) in crease footfall and can have a positive effect on nearby shops and businesses – lets hope that is what happens at Badcox. • Traditional Town Centres are disadvantaged by planning policy and NPPF failing to live up to the promises of Localisms, and the inability of local authorities at any level to manage High Streets in the way that the research suggests is needed, both because of the lack of legal powers to refuse inappropriate development, the delay in MDCs Local Plan being approved, and the reduction in the capacity of MDC to implement policies, compared with the 1990s when all the local authorities worked together successfully. • In my opinion Mr Hyman from Experian is taking a rather Govian/Farageian rose tinted view of the old High Street – it might then have been the only place to go but when you got there the range of goods available was limited. I would put money on it that you can get a better range of goods, both convenience and comparison, in Frome today than you could have 30 years ago. There will always be some things that the High Street is not suited for – white goods that people buy infrequently and need large display areas. • We havent given up on attracting the kinds of shops that Frome doesnt have but there is a retail hierarchy and retailers polices that we have to overcome.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 15:40:33 +0000
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