It’s not just retailers who are angry at the neglect of UK high streets. In an exclusive ICM poll, shoppers tell us what they want to see happen to their local shops, and we report on Retail Week readers’ views

boarded_shops.jpg

Readers speak out

What Retail Week readers want to see in the Manifesto

Manifesto for the High Street

Sign up to the Manifesto and add your views

For more details on Retail Week’s high street conference, visit savethehighstreet.co.uk

The UK’s shoppers think their local high streets are worse than they were five years ago, and believe their local councils should shoulder responsibility to combat the decline.

Today an exclusive poll for Retail Week confirms what many in retail have long suspected - that the massive number of empty shops on the high street is driving shoppers away.

In the past month, Retail Week’s Manifesto for the High Street campaign has highlighted the huge challenges facing the UK’s town centres, and identified 10 ways in which local councils, central government and retailers themselves can together turn around what is a rapidly deteriorating situation. We’ve been inundated with responses from readers, some of which we’re publishing today.

Last week’s figures from the Local Data Company showed the growth rate in empty store numbers is slowing, but this is being driven by an improvement in the situation in prime UK shopping destinations. In secondary towns vacancy rates continue to rise at an alarming rate, and the ICM findings opposite show this is a big consumer concern.

56% of shoppers surveyed by ICM said their high street is worse than it was five years ago. Just 12% said theirs was better, while 27% said it was the same. Shoppers clearly signalled where they felt responsibility lies, indicating that local high streets’ problems should be solved at a local level. 71% said the responsibility for improving the high street should be borne mostly by local councils. Just 12% cited retailers and 8% central government.

And shoppers aren’t just complaining about the problems of the high street - they’re voting with their feet, taking advantage of the range of alternative shopping options. Less than a third of those surveyed are doing as much or more shopping on the high street as they were five years ago, while 41% are using online more and 37% are driving to out-of-town retail parks instead.

Only 10% of shoppers said their high street has no major problems. Empty shops - and the resulting lack of shopping choices - were both highlighted as issues for respondents’ local high streets by a majority of shoppers. Expensive parking, a rundown environment and anti-social behaviour were all mentioned by at least a quarter of shoppers.

The findings, along with your comments, will be debated at a Retail Week Conference in Birmingham on March 18. There’s still time to submit your views here before we send the manifesto to all the major parties ahead of the general election.

Property view

What’s the future for town centres?

“Why would you want to go to a town to shop if you didn’t live or work there?”

It’s a question that a leading panel of experts on retail and property debated last week at the British Property Federation’s (BPF) Retail Summit. And it’s one that many towns are struggling to answer.

Last week the problems highlighted by Retail Week’s Manifesto for the High Street hit the headlines in the wider media, with the publication of figures from the Local Data Company (LDC) revealing that shop vacancies have jumped to 12.4% in the six months to December 31, with secondary towns suffering the most. The Kent seaside resort of Margate - the plight of which was profiled in Retail Week two weeks ago - was worst hit, with a vacancy rate of 27.2%.

The recession has put the situation into sharp relief. LDC director Matthew Hopkinson said that he believes that what’s happening on the high street is driven not just by the recession, but other factors such as the internet, parking charges and rent and lease terms.

The immediate problem for retailers close to stores that are closing is that high levels of vacancy drag them down too. HMV property director Mark Bowles explained that consumer confidence lowers when shops close, as they don’t want to shop

there because there is less choice, and that the performance of his company’s stores in primary and secondary locations was becoming more divergent. In future, he expected retailers will occupy fewer but bigger stores.

The panel agreed that creating an experience will be key. Bowles insisted that digital books are not a threat to the Waterstone’s concept and that in-store signings and events “create a different shopping experience.”

Hammerson managing director of retail Lawrence Hutchings said that further developing leisure and restaurant offers alongside retail will be crucial in creating a physical shopping experience as online sales continue to grow.

But with this increasing focus on prime locations, what does it mean for other, less favoured high streets? PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Professor Barry Gilbertson said he expected that, when the recession ends, 18% to 22% of the high street will never be reoccupied.

“Shops on the periphery will no longer be shops and instead bars, perhaps,” he said. “Tertiary will move into secondary, and secondary will move into primary. Rents going down will allow this. This will condense the high street.”

Landlords have become more flexible, Bowles said, but more remains to be done. He said that while landlords have talked a good game on offering monthly rents, it is still something that needs to be fought for, even on new leases.

And Bowles expressed anger at how the CVA process allows retailers that have been in difficulty to continue to occupy property on more favourable terms than their solvent rivals. “CVAs don’t create a level playing field,” he said.

There was good news, though, and in particular a welcome for the growing number of pop-up stores that are appearing on the high street. HMV opened its first pop-ups in the run-up to Christmas and Bowles said they were effective for penetrating markets, while Hutchings and Hopkinson agreed that pop-ups add vibrancy to high streets and shopping centres, which more traditional stores cannot always provide.

Click here to join in the debate about the Manifesto.