Browse Bills Blog
Don’t let the sun mask a fake recovery
The ebb and flow of consumer confidence is something economists track religiously. For years it’s been sinking to new depths, but the sudden change of weather, allowing Britain to enjoy the best summer in years, has seen a striking turnaround. Or so it appears.Once...
Stop whinging, change is something retailers have to accept, look at the High Street.
Two of the biggest names in retailing have appealed to Government to “level the playing field” and start to apply a different taxation to on-line retailers. The CEOs of Morrisons, Dalton Philips, and J. Sainsbury’s Justin King, should be told to stop whinging...
The high street has reached tipping point – there’s no going back
Last week a largely unnoticed event showed we’ve now reached a tipping point. As the Government quietly released a progress update on the Portas Pilots, ministers acknowledged, no doubt through gritted teeth, that the Pilots had been a “valuable testing ground” but...
Retail space………Enough already!
Insanity is, as Albert Einstein once said, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I’m not sure retail developers got the memo on this one though. Earlier this month (21 June) Cushman & Wakefield announced that UK shopping centre...
If town centres are going to have a future they can’t rely on retail
Slowly but surely the facts are beginning to percolate through a bed of misty-eyed sentiment and nostalgia. The high street is not going back to a credit-fuelled consumer boom of the early noughties and the dying model that traditionalists continue to champion...
Alternative High Street Review
“If you don’t like change,” a famous army general once warned, “you are going to like irrelevance even less.” While huge structural changes continue to sweep the high street, lessons like this seem oddly not to be registering with policy makers. During my 45-year...
The High Street is a mirror image of the UK Economy
The High Street is a mirror image of the UK Economy As we enter spring and say goodbye to winter it is a good time to reflect on the first two grizzly months of 2013 for retailers and the UK economy. The Christmas lights were still up when the shutters came down on...
Jackie Sadek CEO of UK Regeneration writes…..
The danger of building a future on retail By Jackie Sadek on February 25, 2013 2:16 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks My last post on the LDC Retail Summit gave rise to a bit of commentary. People really care about what is going to happen to the British high street and...
Horse Meat Scandal and Retailers
It’s what it says on the packet After a week when Phil Clarke, the boss of Tesco, promised his customers that, in future, what it says on the packet will be what’s in the packet, when Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, started a probe into his own department...
Presentation to the Wake Up Macclesfield Public meeting January 25th 2013
Macclesfield 25th January 2013-01-21 Talk by Bill Grimsey Goodevening Councillor Michael Jones leader of Cheshire East Council recently wrote a letter in your local Newspaper claiming that everyone agrees that Macclesfield is at a crossroad. He claims that the...
Bills 4th Blog Retailers obsessed with adding more space 30th Dec 2012
Welcome to my fourth blog. In the wake of Christmas and a few days after Comet shut its' doors for the last time and disappeared from our High Streets forever, I challenge an industry which is adding more and more space almost irresponsibly. We have witnessed further...
The Spitfire Iconic symbol of World War 2
I am outraged that M&S are selling a plastic toy Spitfire with "made in Germany" on the pack. I understand that we should move on and I have. I have owned German cars, promoted their food and love their country. But I cannot see the Spitfire "made in Germany" on sale...
“Sold Out will make uncomfortable reading, but if you are at all serious about making your High Street a better place, the solution starts here.”
“Bill Grimsey offers a practical and realistic vision for the future of the High Street, which can cater for the needs we really have today.”
“If retailing needs a “Big Bang” moment, then this is a hand grenade of a book” – Joe Cushnan
If you are at all serious about making your High Street a better place, the solution starts here.
In recent years, campaigns have been galvanised to ‘save the High Street’. It seems everyone has a view about how we can revamp our down-at-heel towns and cities. But are they all missing the point?
Veteran retailer Bill Grimsey argues that it is already too late. The High Street as we have grown to know it, is good as dead already. So what happens next?