There is perhaps no better barometer of local economic health than the high street. Rightly or wrongly, nothing gives such an immediate impression of a place.
And that’s why I am delighted to be launching the new Localis report ‘Recovery & Renewal on the Kent High Street’ at a webinar on Tuesday.
The Covid pandemic highlighted the importance of having a good local high street or town centre with many people rediscovering the pleasure of being able to shop locally. High streets and town centres continue to be a focus for national and local policymakers and debate – and rightly so.
But the changing high street is by no means a new phenomenon. Changes run much deeper than Covid. At one end of the spectrum, on-line retail grows, while at the other, the leisure experience offered by multi-purpose retail centres creates new demands and expectations. Covid in many ways just brought these changes into sharper focus.
The hike in energy prices businesses are now suffering presents yet more challenge to high streets and town centres with some shops facing potentially crippling energy costs. The Prime Minister’s immediate support for businesses in capping bills is welcome and her pledge that that the Government would ‘make sure that the most vulnerable businesses like pubs, like shops, continue to be supported’ beyond the initial six-month period is equally important in what remains a very fragile trading environment.
With challenges only increasing, it is even more important that as councils we continue to look at how we can support our high streets and town centres. Earlier this year in our Kent CC Strategy, ‘Framing Kent’s Future’, I committed the county to work with our district colleagues to ‘regenerate town centres and promote independent retail, building on each town’s strengths and the needs of the local area to re-establish town centres as economic and community hubs with renewed purpose and identity’.
And that is why I am delighted that economic development professionals from across Kent and Medway - from county, unitary, city, district and borough councils - came together to shape the objectives for ‘Recovery & Renewal on the Kent High Street’, which draws on both local and national best practice and innovation to provide a guide.
In recent years, a succession of national studies has been published. This national learning is combined in the report with local experience from across Kent and Medway to develop a toolkit enabling places to draw from the successes, experiments and experiences of others. A panel of those leading high street regeneration nationally was convened to provide further insight.
With Government deeply committed to regeneration and growth and with the potential of new powers to be introduced to tackle the scourge of empty shops, this report offers complementary local solutions and national policy ideas which could make levelling up on our high streets a reality.
The report identifies barriers to recovering including land use and ownership, infrastructure, housing, crime and safety, and the question of business rates. It considers post-pandemic changes including shifts in population, more flexible working patterns and the proliferation of co-workspaces. And it identifies areas of policy for high street recovery and renewal in terms of placemaking, sustainability, sector mix and labour markets.
But there is no one-size-fits all solution and nor should there be. Every high street and town centre should be distinctive and of its place. Some ideas we will agree with and some we may not. But we can all benefit from understanding what has worked (and what hasn’t) elsewhere.
Through the pandemic, with the support of a range of Government grants and initiatives, local councils have been instrumental in keeping many businesses afloat in the anticipation of better times. We may need to do so again. This report is prompted by the urgency of a sustained post-Covid local economic recovery and, within this, the need for high streets across the country to be able to thrive and grow.
A vibrant high street or town centre is central to local growth and a sense of place – we are offering an array of ideas and options showing how by working together nationally and locally we may achieve this. There is perhaps no better time to do so.
Cllr Roger Gough is leader of Kent CC
Recovery and renewal on the Kent High Street – a Localis policy toolkit