Covid-19 may be the shock needed to finally resolve our high streets’ problem

COMMENT Those readers of EG who have been paying attention will recall that I published two Reviews of the Future of the High Street in 2013 and 2018. These were pretty well received; not least of all by you guys in the property sector. You may now have seen that – in something of a foolhardy moment – I got the band back together to produce a Covid-19 supplement. This has been a tough old journey for me. And I’m not great at humble pie. But I have had to openly acknowledge that the mission of the business leaders of my era – and I sure was proud to be up there with them – was largely to clone towns with the same brands. This has damaged communities and the environment.  It’s a bitter pill to swallow when you realise that what you spent your whole life building now needs to be unpicked in order to build back a better place. We celebrated all that as progress. But a new generation sees things differently. But, hey, we are all going to have to look at things differently now, right? And we would have done, in any case. After all, this problem has been three decades in the making, and it wasn’t going away. And the Covid-19 Grimsey Review supplement has concluded that, post-pandemic, town centres will need the most radical shift in power from central government to local communities ever seen if high streets are to remain relevant. Anyone who thinks that a new era of big government will deal with the challenges facing battered town centres needs their heads examining. We argue that only “localism on steroids” can turn around our failing high streets. It’s carnage out there Our team’s analysis shows what you people are grappling with daily. It is carnage. Almost 50% of retailers are at risk of failure. We believe our only option is for local people to be empowered to redesign their own high streets and have a say on the businesses, services and amenities that occupy it, with increased CPO powers if necessary. With not a lot of apology to those responsible, we expose the weakness of private equity-owned high streets that have squeezed all the value from their businesses and left communities hollowed-out. The model no longer works. That was then and this is now. We need to build local economies around people who have a proper stake in their communities, not distant investors who only see them as a number on their portfolio investment. I’m sorry if some of this may be uncomfortable for the property sector, at least in the short term. But it is in all our interests to embrace behavioural changes such as the surge in volunteering, community spirit and increased attachment felt by people towards their local areas during lockdown. Town centres need to harness this spirit to build a post-retail landscape. And this means a huge expansion of green space, parks and town squares, an explicit recognition that towns and cities must no longer be designed around the car, and the creation of “20-minute neighbourhoods” where people are able to get all the services they need within a short walk. Above all, we call for housing, housing, and yet more housing, to be sensitively levered into town centres, in properly planned inclusive communities, so that the “core” remains a “communal hub” – comprised of the residual retail, and all other community uses – protected for the enjoyment of all. All to play for It is not all gloom and doom. For the smart property professional there is all to play for by engaging properly in the future of town centres, provided you can work in partnership. Our Covid-19 supplement calls for business rates to be replaced with a sales tax. And for the UK Land Registry to open up its full dataset, for free, on who owns all high street property. We have exposed the perversity of empty business rates, while acknowledging that local authorities need some levers to stop properties being wilfully left vacant. Yes, it will entail wholesale leasehold reform. The excellent work by the BPF on the Code of Conduct is a great start. Another welcome development is the appointment of a senior property guy, Mark Robinson, to be the chair of the government’s High Streets Task Force. Change is coming. And the clever property professional will ride the wave. But a lot, a helluva lot, of creatively and innovation will be needed. And this work is super-important, being at the heart of the economic recovery of the UK: the NP11 group of 11 Local Enterprise Partnerships across the north were first out of the traps, openly embracing this as a plan, arguing that it will drive a 21st-century model of localism. Here’s hoping the property industry is truly capable of the change that this year is compelling us to take seriously. Bill Grimsey is former chief executive of Wicks and Iceland. Read the Grimsey Review Covid 19 supplement >>