This car parking smokescreen can no longer hide the biggest high street issue
Somewhere in the corridors of power, in Eric Pickles’ Department of Communities and Local Government no less, is a box of tricks marked ‘diversionary tactics’. It’s full of distraction policies to help ministers dodge, feint and weave around the inescapable fact that the British high street is struggling to reverse years of painful decline.
Grant Shapps used to own it and pulled out various rabbits such as his ridiculously titled Future High Street X-Fund, which sounded like it belonged on a reality TV cutting room floor rather than in Government. But now Eric Pickles has taken over and car parking is the new smokescreen. This, he argues, is the answer to all our problems. Record insolvencies, 45,000 empty shops, big chains collapsing? Easy, let people park on double yellow lines.
Today, he’s arguing that the major issue facing the high street is CCTV cameras used for parking fines. It’s certainly a populist move. Everyone hates parking fines. But it’s still fiddling in the margins.
The biggest issue facing the high street right now, as everyone in retail knows, is business rates. From Philip Green to the chip shop owner in Rochdale, who went bust as a result of a rates bill that was double his rent, we’re all in agreement. This tax is out of touch and not fit for purpose. Government is squeezing the high street like a boa constrictor to the point where it’s taxing people out of business.
Look at the facts. Last year we had the biggest increase in 20 years. In this parliament Government is set to increase the rates bill by an extra £6.5billion. In 2015 it will overtake council tax in tax receipts bringing in £29.6billion to the Treasury. As a property tax it has no bearing on a business’s ability to make a profit and has no link to the state of the economy. Ministers may boast that we have one of the lowest burdens of corporation tax in Europe, but they don’t admit we have the highest property tax.
In recent months business rates has shot up the agenda. There is now a pressing need for an urgent revaluation to make it a fairer tax, as well as an immediate freeze. The calls for change are getting louder. But ministers remain tight lipped. It is the elephant in the room that must not be spoken of. How about car parking anyone?
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