The high street needs a long-term health plan

The writer, founder of Portas Agency, is the author of ‘The Kindness Economy’

The 2021 Budget is in. Not sure I’ve ever anticipated that little red briefcase more. And as I digest its contents, I’m conflicted — relieved for now, but nervous for the future.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s furlough extension and promise of grants of up to £18,000 to get UK business going again is of course welcome. As is the extension of the business rates holiday into the summer.

The headlines are absorbed by the plans to increase corporate tax by 6 percentage points. But the bigger question for me was always what Sunak would do about those pesky business rates in the longer term. And as predicted by many, that is nothing — yet.

It’s a “thorny” and “complex” issue we keep being told. Of course. But this thorn didn’t grow with the pandemic. It’s been hobbling our high streets for decades. Experts across the board agree that business rates, calculated solely using the value of a company’s premises, are unfair and totally outdated. The tax rate is now at more than 50 per cent of “rateable” values. The next revaluation isn’t planned until 2023. It was damaging pre-Covid. Imagine how catastrophic it’ll be coming out of it.

Maybe, just maybe, we’ll see reform later this year. But maybe doesn’t really cut it at a time when shopkeepers and entrepreneurs need to be able to look ahead and plan their fixed costs. Maybe we’ll see the so-called “Amazon tax” on online retailers to level the playing field. That sounds good. But why do I get the distinct feeling those costs will end up on consumers’ plate?

Business rates are not just about rows of shops selling stuff. They are really about people — their livelihoods, their lives, our lives. Commercial real estate has a heartbeat. From the entrepreneur who owns a couple of shops on a parade, to mom-and-pop operators, to the pension funds grandparents rely on. All of those pockets will be hit if these rates do not change.

Then of course there is the retail workforce, a huge percentage of whom are female employers, entrepreneurs and employees. That’s the kind of socio-economic setback that could take decades to repair.

And there is the hit to communities. Shops are living institutions playing a fundamental role in the fabric of people’s lives. The cookie-cutter mediocrity so many of them turned into is not what retail should be. Covid-19 has opened our eyes to this.

The surge in hyper-localism we’ve witnessed this past year is not just about lockdown convenience or chocolate-box frivolity. It’s driven by the deep need we have to feel connected to other human beings, to relate, support, stand strong in the face of the storm being whipped up by the higher echelons of power.

Simply shoving homes on the high street is not an answer. First, there’s a significant cost to repurposing spaces for living. But critically, who wants to live in a ghost town of flats with no centre of gravity, nowhere to gather and feel the community you’re part of?

The optics around this whole affair speak volumes. Government campaigns like “Eat Out to Help Out” throw clear signals to the nation, that it’s on all of us to support the industries that matter most. I’m still waiting for the retail equivalent.

Yes to the short-term business rates relief, of course. But when can we start talking longer-term reform, and beyond that regeneration, revitalisation and rebirth of the high street? It’s pathological short-termism that got us into so much of this mess. Short-term handouts cannot be the answer.

Every day my team and I meet new, like-minded people on the ground, all hell-bent on reinventing the high street for the better and the good of all. From local authorities, property owners and non-profit retail organisations like Revo, to residents, architects and civil planners. Online marketplace company Appear Here’s “Save the Street” campaign is a brilliant example of the wave of public and influencer support that can be fostered street-up.

What becomes of high streets touches every single one of us. So let’s talk long-term. Because vibrant, innovative, socially dynamic high streets will help this country not just heal, but thrive.