COMMENT It’s a sign of the times that our national media are giving so much coverage to the health of our high streets, but we should also be encouraged that real attempts are being made to get under the skin of the issues and not paint them as simplistic retailer vs landlord fights, or indeed to find a scapegoat or apportion blame.
I have appeared twice on BBC Radio 4’s consumer programme You and Yours to talk about the retail market – the first time to explain that many retail property owners are in fact managing your money and my money, our savings and pensions put to work to provide a secure income.
The second time, a few days ago, was to discuss the challenge of fragmented ownership.
The BBC devoted the whole programme to the ownership of the UK’s high streets, the challenges our high streets are facing, and the solutions required to support a better future for our town and city centres. EG was also part of the programme, reporting on its research vividly demonstrating the diversity of ownership of our high streets.
Red herring of foreign ownership
To its credit, the BBC declined to follow the red herring of foreign ownership (why should overseas investors and pensioners be less entitled to seek secure investments for their future?) instead understanding that what is most important for our high streets is “patient” capital – committed for the long term.
My contribution to the programme highlighted our sector’s commitment to sustainable investment, to the benefit of both places and communities over the long term, and also the need for visionary leadership and partnership to overcome the challenges around fragmented ownership, to stimulate further investment.
I was joined by Allan Lockhart from NewRiver, who did a great job of demystifying the challenges of maintaining a partnership approach between retailers and property owners in tough circumstances, and how the CVA process needs to support rather than undermine that partnership approach.
Colourful language
Both programmes included colourful language from individuals – in the first case Mike Ashley, who took the opportunity to negotiate with his landlords in public rather than through conventional methods.
It was hugely disappointing though that, on the second occasion, it was high streets minister Jake Berry who in a pre-recorded piece exclaimed that “landlords need to get real”. This appeared to be based on the notion that there are many people out there wanting to use empty shops for pop-up businesses who can’t get access to them.
There may well be a place for such entrepreneurial activity, and for it to bring life and colour back to a high street for short periods, but it’s not the answer to the fundamental restructuring required, and no commercial landlord is likely to be willingly sitting on empty premises.
His colourful language was at odds with the constructive nature of the discussion and the sense of shared ambition to restore the health of our high streets and it’s a shame he was not able to appear live having heard the rest of the programme, when I hope he might have taken a rather different tone and focused on the big picture and not peripheral activities.
Shared vision
High streets will in future reflect a wider variety of different activities and be defined by much more than consumer shopping habits. To achieve this, property owners and local government, and the businesses using the buildings, must work together to create a shared vision for the identity and character of a town centre and high street, and to curate it with the right mix of retail, leisure, business, local services and facilities, and residential.
This is, however, particularly challenging given the fragmented ownership of most of our high streets, which can be a significant deterrent to long-term institutional investors, and strong leadership and a genuine commitment to a shared agenda will be needed to overcome it.
Melanie Leech is chief executive of the British Property Federation
