After shutting his last shop, Ian Middleton believes the property market must change if high street entrepreneurs are to succeed

October 3 this year marked the 20th anniversary of the opening of my company’s first store in Oxford. 

It should have been a day of celebration, but the closure of our last store on September 28 understandably put a damper on any plans for a tickertape parade.

During our high street odyssey we’d opened and closed nine different stores, but shuttering the last was a poignant moment. 

I’ve always enjoyed face to face retail and approached the idea of being pureplay online with the same relish as I have for root canal therapy. 

But you can only buck the system for so long and our physical stores were, somewhat ironically, hamstringing our online operations. 

The margins we needed to keep on top of high street overheads meant that our website was no longer competitive, and with falling footfall and sales it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened.

We didn’t go softly into that good night.  Rather I spent years in largely fruitless and frustrating negotiations with our institutional landlords and local councils. 

Even after the crash in 2008, I saw little evidence of a sensible and sustainable approach to rental expectations or any hint of the culture of co-operation that’s often cited by the BPA and the DCLG. 

One property manager took three months to respond and others displayed a total inability to think outside of the boxes they had to tick. 

All I saw was a one size fits all approach that, regardless of the outcome, brooked no argument with the market. Driven more by inertia than strategy, there was no plan B.

So the next 10 years had us gradually reducing our high street footprint through a process of natural wastage and fancy footwork, until we were left with two high-profile, over-rented but reasonably profitable shops.

However, with only a few years left on their leases, the long-term prospect seemed doubtful. 

Having already been though one horrendously acrimonious lease renewal, we knew we’d walk away next time round. It just wasn’t worth the number of years the process took off my life. 

The crowning irony was that, in spite of the realities of their trading environments, both leases had a significant resale value, certainly more than projected profits in their twilight years. 

In a depressing indictment of the retail property market, we came to realise that these stores that we’d worked so hard to build were worth more to us dead than alive.

Thus we completed the sale of our final store, five days before our 20th anniversary and 30 seconds’ walk from where we’d opened our first. 

A sad day, but we at least felt we’d taken back control of a business that had been on a runaway train for some time. One where we were paying the fare for others to ride first class while we ran along behind trying to keep up.

It’s ultimately been a liberating experience. One that has given me back the drive and enthusiasm I had as a retail entrepreneur all those years ago. 

The retail bug still wasn’t finished me, as we were approached to open our first concession in Oxford, pleasingly in the oldest independent department store in the UK. 

If this proves successful it seems like a much more viable alternative for a business like ours than the neuralgia associated with taking on more standalone stores. 

I’m sure the rose-tinted specs will be struck from my eyes eventually, but at the moment I’m basking in what seems like a new dawn for my business.

Will we ever open stores again?  Never say never as James Bond once said.

But even though I’m being assailed on a weekly basis by eager letting agents with lists of ‘perfect’ locations, I think it’ll be a while before I’ll stick my family jewels back in that particular meat grinder.

The high street is a long way from dead, but it’s staggering under the weight of a two very fat monkeys clinging to its back. 

With a predicted commercial property meltdown at the end of next year, as so many retail leases come to a natural end, I for one hope we’ll finally see the reset button being pushed on an unwieldy, over-engineered market, mired in the belief that retail is the gift that will always keep giving. 

Maybe then small, professionally run stores will be appreciated by landlords and investors for the stability, diversity and innovation that they bring to the high street, rather than as a footnote in an asset valuation exercise.

  • Ian Middleton founded jewellery retailer Argenteus

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