Town centres: who killed the high street?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/04/town-centres-high-street

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In 2015 it was a parlour game; but by 2020, it was a serious worry, the subject of Commons debates. Who killed the British high street? What analysts had long warned of had finally come to pass. Outside big cities, British shopping streets had more gaps than Gaps. Once-handsome town centres were now a collage of pound shops and boarded-up fronts. Their only visitors were the elderly and the teenage: those without broadband on tap, or cars to get out to the A-road retail parks.

The high street wasn't killed by one blow, but by a series, some of which initially didn't seem so serious. There was the collapse of Woolworths at the start of the credit crunch. But looking back, 2012 was the turning point: the year when Clinton Cards, Blacks, Peacocks, Game and JJB Sports went under. Easily the biggest shock was Comet, which plunged into administration just weeks before Christmas, putting more than 6,000 jobs at risk. That it couldn't hold out for the busiest stretch of the year summed up the weakness of the industry and the nervousness of creditors. And as the big names popped off, the boutiques, cafes and hairdressers struggled to attract passing trade. Then they too brought down the shutters for good.

Which meant that by 2020 the death of the high street was no longer hyperbole: it was a fact. And who was to blame? Poor managers, certainly. That story from 2012 about John Browett, the Dixons boss who shifted to Apple only to leave six months later, had the quality of a parable. Mr Browett's big idea, it was reported, had been to cut shop staff. Too many British retailers focused on slashing costs rather than serving customers, a model that upmarket Apple spurned.

Some said the main culprit was George Osborne, for increasing public-sector unemployment and jacking up VAT. In those headwinds, who'd fork out for a new dishwasher? Others pointed to cash-starved councils, hungrier for car park fees than to take the long view on their commercial centres. Cancelling the business rates revaluation, forcing small businesses to pay taxes on valuations at the height of the boom, would not have helped either. Still others pointed out that a change of guard on the high street was inevitable: for too long Britain's economy had been based on buying and borrowing, not making and earning.

All were factors. But ultimately the British high street died of neglect, with no agency willing to map out a different future for it. The result was town centres standing desolate, even as former customers gave their cash to internet retailers rather more sophisticated in their tax planning than their sales advice. However convenient, shopping in 2020 was a cheerless business – and one in which more money ended up in fewer hands.