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 it’s good to see. I am delighted to report that Bill Grimsey, the extraordinary luminary who spoke up from the floor at the Retail Summit was also, by magic serendipity, appearing at the UKR Forum later in the week. And he caused a bit of a furore at that too!

Bill is the veteran retailer (45 years running – and then having to collapse – such chains as WHS Focus) who has written the seminal work Sold Out which is “a feisty and practical guide” to trends on the high street, rather brilliantly described by one reviewer as the “big bang” on the debate. He is someone with real knowledge who is prepared to speak out. And anyone who is serious about saving their high street should rush to… er… Amazon (where it is a best seller) and order their copy immediately.

At the LDC Retail Summit, Bill had made a telling comparison between HMV (as a world- known brand with a remarkable history and provenance) and the UK as a brand. It was chilling stuff. At the UKR Forum he followed up this searing analysis with the three key things that have influenced change on the high street (and this is SINCE the advent of out-of-town 30 years ago) namely: the introduction of the barcode, the omnipresent internet and, most recently, the new use of mobile devices to purchase items. And certainly with seven major national chains hitting the buffers since the Portas Review was launched, as he says rightly, it is time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Bill is firmly in the “let’s get real” camp, of course, as underpinned by the sainted Matthew Hopkinson of the LDC and his hard evidence base. And we have to take the hard lessons on board. Bill argues that we need to look at regenerating our high streets as community centres not centres based on retail. They need a reason to be there. We need to look at different services being on offer, entertainment and leisure. In short: experiences.

And, whatever happens, things are going to continue in this direction of travel and we have got to get used to it. The shift from “bricks to clicks” is irrevocable. Already 20% of non-food items are bought online, with the projections of this going up to 50%. The retail environment is fundamentally changing and there is a need to forward-think 30 years in their planning.

The few visionary local authorities who are prepared to accept the profound economic changes will be those that best future-proof their high streets. We need to work out how people will spend their time and respond accordingly. We need to stop thinking in terms of “death of the high street” and start thinking about reinvention (“death of the high street as retail destination” is a far more accurate description).

We all know that the Portas Review on the high street was really designed so that Mary Portas could get some good telly out of it. But the seriously positive outcome out of all that could be a new breed of entrepreneur. Cue the admirable work of Liz Slee of Start Up Britain, whose strap-line is “start your own business, become your own boss”. Start Up Britain can offer practical support for pop-up shops and other techniques for getting entrepreneurs into business.

In short, as Bill Grimsey says so succinctly: the high street is not dead; it will reinvent itself. But any future strategy predicated on retail will be doomed to failure.

So what for local authorities? They should stop commissioning the wrong type of studies (retail impact studies being a complete waste of time, in view of the onslaught of technology) and start asking the right questions.

And for the property sector? Well, for owners of high street stock the lessons are clear and well understood. But for some others (including a number of our leading institutional investors) brace yourselves: Bill predicts that the next thing to go after the UK high streets is the large-scale UK retail parks. And I guess the landowners concerned would be rather wise to start working on alternative strategies for these now.