Much has
been written lately of the demise of the High Street as a shopping experience
and various solutions have been put forward as to how we could save it.
Here’s
my question, addressed to Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg
Does the
government actually want to save the High Street?
And if so- what
plan if any, does the Government have for securing the future of the High
Street?
The High
Street needs a level playing field if it is to compete with online retailers
who enjoy vastly reduced operating costs and as we have seen recently with
Amazon very dubious tax liabilities. If the High street based retailers are to
compete on price then we need to look at ways in which their overheads could be
reduced.
I know from
running businesses myself that one of the greatest costs to the retailer is
business rates. May I suggest cutting the burden of Business rates which in
some cases are almost as high as the rent? Maybe then we would see a return to the
High Street with people actually going out to shops to make their purchases.
Here’s an alternative
theory for why the government seems to favour the online economy over the high
street.
The majority
of the population is sat at home watching subscription TV and shopping online,
whilst ordering in food, why bother going out of the house?
People are
more controllable and less troublesome when they are sitting on their sofa
indoors, even better if they are spending money at the same time.
