This morning's EGi tells us that the government has called on Mary Portas, "queen of shops", to advise it on saving embattled high streets. BIS (the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) has said it "would announce more details shortly about its commitment to introduce a package of measures to support town centres". Well jolly good call, I reckon. You won't find many of us in the regeneration sector who don't adore Ms Portas (actually, these days, you won't find many of us in the regeneration sector at all. Full stop. But that's another story altogether). We regeneration types seriously worship Mary Portas for her "tough love" and the fact that she clearly cares about the independents. So much so that my team asked her to deliver a keynote address for one of our conferences last year. Sadly she couldn't do it, due to her filming schedule, but her office was thoroughly charming about it all, and they seemed to really care.
So we just love her. And, if she'll accept the government challenge, we think this will be an inspired appointment by BIS. And yet, and yet, and yet (sorry, Cassandra moment looming)... she cannot do it on her own...
She cannot do it on her own because she isn't really the "queen of
shops", she is actually the "queen of comparative shopping", which, I
think you'll agree, is rather different. She is on the side of the
retailers (and nothing wrong with that). But it is the polarisation of
comparative shopping that has led to so much distress on the high street
and even the indubitable talents of Ms Portas cannot make the average
high street shop space fit for what is required in the modern retail
outlet, and provided for so amply by the likes of Westfield.
It isn't just size, it is also car parking, servicing, co-locaters and so forth; and it's complicated. And it isn't just shops. The Local Data Company says the proportion of empty properties in British town centres reached 14.5% at the end of last year, and it will take more, a lot more, than a response tailored to retail alone to bring our high streets back to life. Because, in almost every case of a failing high street, the retail needs to be concentrated and consolidated, vast swathes of the stock should be converted into residential and yet more needs to be converted into other uses appropriate for the locality, particularly anything that will enable business start-ups.
So if Ms Portas is to take on this Herculean task, she will need a team around her. Which got me thinking... who would I have on the team?
Well, modesty prevents me from putting forward anyone from the UKR team, but she'd need a regeneration practitioner and I would nominate that old lag Alistair Parker of C&W (just saw him today, as it happens), who adds retail expertise onto a regeneration platform and has a healthy dollop of being a true urban historian thrown in. Keith Mabbutt of Westfield knows a thing or two about how to juxtapose outlets so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts (a neat trick). John Rhodes of Quod should be the planning guru, particularly now he has added the team of Andy Hunt and Tom Dobson, supreme regeneration economists, to the mix (because they know about jobs and micro businesses). She'd probably need Tracy Mills from Davis Coffer Lyons to advise on the cafes and the bars. But she'd also need someone who could think imaginatively about what else to do with redundant spaces... so she would need Mark Davey of Future City, who has just put 200 (or was it 2,000?) Chinese businesses into the Ballymore scheme on the Isle of Dogs. Yes, he'd sniff out a local energy source to breathe life into the high street aright! Nobody better!
A dream team in my view. And if you couldn't sort out the high street with that sort of talent then you sure could have a good party!
It isn't just size, it is also car parking, servicing, co-locaters and so forth; and it's complicated. And it isn't just shops. The Local Data Company says the proportion of empty properties in British town centres reached 14.5% at the end of last year, and it will take more, a lot more, than a response tailored to retail alone to bring our high streets back to life. Because, in almost every case of a failing high street, the retail needs to be concentrated and consolidated, vast swathes of the stock should be converted into residential and yet more needs to be converted into other uses appropriate for the locality, particularly anything that will enable business start-ups.
So if Ms Portas is to take on this Herculean task, she will need a team around her. Which got me thinking... who would I have on the team?
Well, modesty prevents me from putting forward anyone from the UKR team, but she'd need a regeneration practitioner and I would nominate that old lag Alistair Parker of C&W (just saw him today, as it happens), who adds retail expertise onto a regeneration platform and has a healthy dollop of being a true urban historian thrown in. Keith Mabbutt of Westfield knows a thing or two about how to juxtapose outlets so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts (a neat trick). John Rhodes of Quod should be the planning guru, particularly now he has added the team of Andy Hunt and Tom Dobson, supreme regeneration economists, to the mix (because they know about jobs and micro businesses). She'd probably need Tracy Mills from Davis Coffer Lyons to advise on the cafes and the bars. But she'd also need someone who could think imaginatively about what else to do with redundant spaces... so she would need Mark Davey of Future City, who has just put 200 (or was it 2,000?) Chinese businesses into the Ballymore scheme on the Isle of Dogs. Yes, he'd sniff out a local energy source to breathe life into the high street aright! Nobody better!
A dream team in my view. And if you couldn't sort out the high street with that sort of talent then you sure could have a good party!
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