Take heart in the high street

Andy Burnham gets it. He understands that our high streets reflect how we feel about ourselves and our life's fortunes. With sluggish economic growth too many of our high streets make us feel that we've all seen better days. It's why the Government's upcoming High Streets Strategy will be so important.I'm a shopkeeper's daughter so it was always a hot topic growing up. But the work I did on establishing the Healthy High Streets campaign at Business in the Community taught me a great deal more. We were in 67 high streets across the UK, working with secondees from Marks & Spencer, Boots, Wilkos and the Coop. This was 2013. These brands believed in the high street and were willing to put their money where their mouths were. Mary Portas had been appointed the Government's High Street Tzar and, with her innate dynamism and zeal, she was keen to get stuck in. Our business leaders were inspired by her. It was a moment to act.With a proactive approach in Bradford, and with the support of West Yorkshire Combined Authority, we started to consolidate the retail core of the city centre. We built new green spaces, a new market, invested in leisure heritage buildings and became the UK's City of Culture 2025.So what works? I started to look at all the parking schemes operating in our high street locations. What was the optimum scheme that gave the most economic benefit? The feedback was that none of them really increased footfall or spend in the high street. Instead people needed a motivating reason to visit, free parking wasn't it. I convened major high street institutional investors nationally to try and harness their energies in the campaign. Not easy. The property industry isn't emotional about high streets. Investment capital is fluid. They can move their money anywhere in the world to get a better return. Property owners don't generally have the capacity or interest to engage in individual high streets over the long-term. Which is why the public sector has to take a lead on high streets.What worked best was locally determined plans, backed by local businesses and store managers who were skilled and confident enough to deliver consistently over time. It was the spirit of local devolution. Local store managers getting stuck into their local high street partnership, providing expertise and commercial acumen to re-energise town centres. More events, more marketing and retailer collaboration on long-term plans did lead to an uplift in footfall.Leaving Business in the Community to become Bradford City Council Leader, I got to put into practice what I'd learned. Nationally there is too much retail space. Retail will always play an important role and there are welcome indications that Government might increase small business rate relief in the budget, but for our high streets to become destinations for the 21st century, we can't rely on 20th century concrete shops to be repopulated. We need to knock down old, tired and ugly retail space and replace it with new uses for our high streets – leisure, commercial and importantly, housing uses. It needs the public sector and/or long-term patient institutional investors to invest and make it happen. With a proactive approach in Bradford, and with the support of West Yorkshire Combined Authority, we started to consolidate the retail core of the city centre. We built new green spaces, a new market, invested in leisure heritage buildings and became the UK's City of Culture 2025. Importantly for the future we established a partnership with the English Cities Fund who are now demolishing redundant retail space to make way for 1000 much needed new homes in the city centre. In turn these homes will bring more footfall and energy, supporting retail and hospitality.It took us 10 years in Bradford to start on the foothills of that journey, it will take at least another 10 to complete it, and then there will have to be more change after that. Our way of life keeps changing, so therefore must our high streets. The Government will have the chance to put some building blocks in place in the Budget. But High Streets are for life, not just for budgets. It's not all down to the Government. Locally as well as nationally, councils, combined authorities, businesses and investors need to step up, make plans and deliver them over years. And only then, with better high streets, will we all feel a whole lot better about life. Susan Hinchcliffe is a former leader of Bradford City Council

Title

HIGH STREETS

Take heart in the high street

By Susan Hinchcliffe | 26 October 2026

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