Grimsey reiterates need to restore town centres
“I spent my entire career cloning every town in the UK and turning it into what is the wasteland today,” Bill Grimsey told a packed room at the Labour Party Conference today as he spoke about how to save Britain’s ailing high streets.
“My passion in life is to correct that legacy and try and pioneer a change that is absolutely required to restore our towns to unique places up and down the country.”
The former chief executive of Iceland and author of the Grimsey Review said town centres cannot be saved by simply concentrating on retail.
“I spent my entire career cloning every town in the UK and turning it into what is the wasteland today,” Bill Grimsey told a packed room at the Labour Party Conference today as he spoke about how to save Britain’s ailing high streets.
“My passion in life is to correct that legacy and try and pioneer a change that is absolutely required to restore our towns to unique places up and down the country.”
The former chief executive of Iceland and author of the Grimsey Review said town centres cannot be saved by simply concentrating on retail.
“You have to recognise that we are changing as a society, driven by technology and craving convenience.
“Against that background, trying to resurrect towns on a shopping proposition is not going to work. What is going to work is to recognise we need to recreate our town as community hubs.”
He added: “It’s time to turn our 1,500 towns up and down the country into 1,500 Disneyworlds. It’s time to find the unique proposition that each town has.”
Review recommendations
In a vitriolic address, Grimsey quoted a number of recommendations from his review that he says seemed “simple in my little brain”.
This included scrapping “insane” taxation rules by government, both in terms of business rates and taxation.
“Business rates are an archaic monster raising £29bn for the treasury, based on a model that has created an industry of lawyers, appeals judges and consultants up and down the country because no one understands it,” he said.
Instead of the £8bn in business rates collected from retailers, Grimsey argues for a 2% sales tax at the till, which could also be applied to online retailers.
To help local authorities better improve retail in their areas, he says all levels of local governance should be “blown up” as they are not fit for purpose, and replaced with unitary authorities.
“The final barrier to entry I face when I talk to councils is money,” he said.
“They say our jobs is to balance the books. I say to them wake up, lets replace you with someone with business vision. Lets look at what we could do, then you look at how you finance it. You do not stop creating plans because you do not have any money.”
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