Reply to: Labour's retail apocalypse

[jamesbrown]

Get scootie to move into the 'hood. That should reduce rateable values.

[AtW]

Our office business rates are about double, zero relation to rent - there should be like VAT on actual rent paid, not some imaginary number valuation officer thinks is right

[greenlake]

Just get the chauffeur to drop you off and pick you up....

The chauffeur....?

[BrilloPad]

Agreed. Often we drive into the centre of Munich and I'm aghast it only costs us €1.5 an hour. On our return to Edinburgh recently we used the NCP carpark, £5 per hour

Just get the chauffeur to drop you off and pick you up....

[scooterscot]

That and the cost of car parking. Councils and their short sighted policies are mostly to blame for the high street's demise. People blame online shopping, but the high street was on its knees well before online shopping became so popular.

Agreed. Often we drive into the centre of Munich and I'm aghast it only costs us €1.5 an hour. On our return to Edinburgh recently we used the NCP carpark, £5 per hour Of course nadda to do with the council. Then the next day we used on-street parking, £3 per hour.

The death of retail on an economy that is arguably driven by retail will make the up and coming recession all the worse.

[BrilloPad]

That and the cost of car parking. Councils and their short sighted policies are mostly to blame for the high street's demise. People blame online shopping, but the high street was on its knees well before online shopping became so popular.

I am sure extinction rebellion love you....

[Whorty]

Those landlords must be raking it in from all those boarded up shops.

It's probably business rates that are too high rather than rent.

That and the cost of car parking. Councils and their short sighted policies are mostly to blame for the high street's demise. People blame online shopping, but the high street was on its knees well before online shopping became so popular.

[Paddy]

A similar action was taken in Berlin.. result? Massive formation to local communities. Various art exhibitions to pop-up clothing / designers etc coffee shops.

I don't get why the UK allows landlords to hold the high street to ransom and make the area look like an demilitarise zone.

Business rates is the main killer of high street business. My two shops (I have freehold) the rates have increased by 1000% in ten years. My friend in London had his rates up by 1500% within the past ten years. The result is, the shops are now empty.

There is also a huge problem with rents and leases for commercial premises. The Leasehold and Freehold law with a Landlord and Tenant is archaic. In many provincial towns, the high street freeholds are owned by the Church of England and they are quite happy to sit on empty properties to keep rents high. Empty shops owned by the C of E often have their empty shops exempt from rates.

The law at the moment is on the side of the Landlords or Freeholder, rents are based on an increase in rent which in turn is based on the highest rent in the neighbourhood and the rent is set to be the maximum that a business can stand without going bankrupt. All this can be read on the RICS website and/or by reading Landlord and Tenant books.

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

Those landlords must be raking it in from all those boarded up shops.

It's probably business rates that are too high rather than rent.

[scooterscot]

Their plan to crash house prices will kill off estate agents..

Can't wait.

[BrilloPad]

Their plan to crash house prices will kill off estate agents. So then it will just be mobile phone shops.

Oh wait. They could legalize all drugs on condition they are only sold via the high street, not online. That would kill off bitcoin too.

[DimPrawn]

It's Britain where landlords are kind of like land owning Barons.

[tazdevil]

A similar action was taken in Berlin.. result? Massive formation to local communities. Various art exhibitions to pop-up clothing / designers etc coffee shops.

I don't get why the UK allows landlords to hold the high street to ransom and make the area look like an demilitarise zone.

It'd be good if they simply changed the law to make landlords give up a short term lease for free after a period of emptiness but this is the UK where opportunity is squandered and taken advantage of and no one wants to pay of so its not going to happen

[scooterscot]

A similar action was taken in Berlin.. result? Massive transformation to local communities. Various art exhibitions to pop-up clothing / designers etc coffee shops.

I don't get why the UK allows landlords to hold the high street to ransom and make the area look like an demilitarise zone.

[DimPrawn]

Swindon High Street looks good to me.

A large crowd of people in hoodies kicking the boarded up windows seem to be enjoying themselves.