BCSC 2013: Former Dragon’s Den star Theo Paphitis has dismissed Bill Grimsey’s findings on the high street, published last week, as “a load of old bollocks”.
In the BCSC 2013 key note speech, Paphitis, owner of Ryman’s and Robert Dyas, used many colourful phrases to describe the Grimsey report. He said the report was “blinding obvious” and that he didn’t subscribe to the notion that “the high street was dead”.
In response, Grimsey said Paphitis was “entitled to his opinion”. He added: “I am looking forward to his [Paphitis’s] report coming out. I came at it from a commercial aspect, unlike Theo. I’m trying to make something constructive.”
Meanwhile, Paphitis described the Mary Portas review, published two years ago, as being about “Portas’s ego”. “She should have told the government to get lost. She was just a pawn.”
But the central theme to Paphitis speech was a full on lambasting of business rates, which he said was one of the main reasons for the death of the high street.
noella.piokivlehan@estatesgazette.com
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