10 | The Grocer | 24 August 2019 Get the full story at thegrocer.co.uk
analysis high streets
Labour’s proposals include a plan to force
landlords to hand empty properties to councils
so they can be used for startups and co-ops
J
eremy Corbyn chose
Bolton High Street to
launch proposals to
save the UK from the threat of
“retail Armageddon” – and as a
barometer of the crisis it was a
fitting choice.
To paraphrase Morrissey,
for many traders in the town,
Armageddon has already come,
with the past few months see-
ing the closure of a string of
national stores – including a
Costa Coffee, Starbucks and
Lush – while a former BHS store
remains an empty shell.
The town has also seen a raft
of local businesses bring down
the shutters, a trend that a new
Local Data Company (LDC)
report, seized on by the party
for its policy launch, says has
resulted in up to 29,000 shops
having been boarded up for a
year or more.
But does Corbyn’s idea, espe-
cially a controversial plan to
force landlords to hand such
properties back to local coun-
cils so they can be turned into
startup shops and co-ops, pass
the credibility test? That par-
ticular proposal received a
rapturous reception from shop-
workers’ union Usdaw.
However, even the authors
of the new report fear Labour’s
plans don’t stack up.
To begin with, LDC disputes
Labour’s press release figure
of 29,000, claiming the correct
Can Corbyn avert
‘retail Armageddon’
on our high streets?
figure of units empty for more
than a year is 24,000.
Either way it is still a sober-
ing figure, with LDC telling The
Grocer 7.4% of all units had
been boarded up for more than
a year in the first half of 2019.
LDC says the figure had
grown as high as one in 10 in
2016, but made a temporary
recovery due to a growth in
demand from leisure brands,
vaping stores and health &
beauty salons, which it says has
now ground to a halt.
As for the practicality of
Labour’s solutions, LDC has
severe doubts. “I think in prin-
ciple it’s a good idea,” says
report author and senior analyst
Ronald Nyakairu. “It’s one way
to fix the issue of these ghost
towns. But one of the questions
is how long they will last and
whether there is the demand.
“The really big question on
top of that is ‘who is going to
foot the bill?’”
Nyakairu says the disastrous
experience of the Portas Pilots,
launched under the former high
street tsar Mary Portas in 2012,
showed how throwing money at
high streets to bring in pop-ups
and startups would not work
unless market forces could sup-
port longer-term rejuvenation.
“We say here even when the
level of funding was £100,
per town that it wasn’t enough,”
he says.Ian Quinn
“In the same way look at
the empty BHS stores. Some of
those units have been used on
a short-term basis but are busi-
nesses able to keep them going
in the long term? Sadly that’s
proved not to be the case so far.”
Indeed, this week The Grocer
reveals a series of startups
launched across the UK as part
of a scheme by Amazon have so
far been struggling to last, such
is the extent of the exodus to
online shopping.
With that brutal backdrop,
a series of town centre experts
tell The Grocer they have major
doubts about the capability
of local authorities to take on
Labour’s ambitious proposals.
“I love the idea that Jeremy
Corbyn wants to re-open shops
that have closed down,” says
Matthew Ogg, policy advisor at
Redo. “But I don’t know any-
one in the industry who doesn’t
want that. The sad fact is it’s not
just about getting new tenants
in or a new startup. It’s all about
the structural issues that are
affecting these businesses.”
Ojay McDonald, CEO of the
Association of Town & City
Management (ATCM), adds:
“The main problem with the
proposals is how are we going
to pay for it, where is the money
going to come from?
“Local authorities have
already been pushed to the
brink financially so how canthey be expected to oversee
turning nearly 30,000 units
back in to startups and co-ops?”The blame game
McDonald believes some land-
lords are contributing to a rise
in the number of the UK’s ghost
towns, saying landlords holding
on to property and not engaging
with local redevelopment pro-
posals is still “a big issue”.
However, others claim Corbyn
is wrong to blame landlords for
the crisis, especially as legisla-
tion introduced by the Labour
government in 2008 has already
hit landlords in the pocket, with
so-called “empty rates” bills for
properties left empty for three
months or more.
“When I read his proposals I
just laughed,” says Dan Simms,