Read comment from Retail Gazette about the announcement made today by The Digital High Street Advisory Board of a five year strategy to reinvigorate the UK’s traditional high streets.
The Advisory Board was established in April 2014 to further the work of the Future High Street Forum.
The Shop Doctor is currently working on a project to assist Cheshire East Council identify opportunities to improve the shopping experience in the ten market towns involved in the Love Local Life Loyalty Card initiative.
The Shop Doctor is assessing the physical experience of shoppers in the towns and also evaluating the effectiveness of their on-line presence and how it might be more effectively utilised to attract increased shopping activity to each of the towns.
The final report will highlight issues impacting on the shopping experience and propose recommendations that will help inform future initiatives to help maintain and develop retail vibrancy in towns across the County.
The towns involved are Alderley Edge, Alsager, Bollington, Congleton, Disley, Knutsford, Macclesfield, Middlewich, Sandbach and Wilmslow.
Retailers in Cheshire West and Chester will be able to attend one of “The Shop Doctors” Retail Masterclasses being arranged for 29th March 2012.
The masterclass is being delivered as part of a new “Shop Doctor Support Programme” being delivered into Cheshire West and Chester for the first time.
The programme also allows for ‘one to one’ advisory visits with 12 independent retailers within each of their businesses. Following the visits each retailer will be receive a comprehensive recommendations report from the Shop Doctor detailing opportunities that he believes will help build business performance and onward profitability.
The Shop Doctor comments that “unlike many recent TV shows featuring retail ‘gurus’ that result in a major stock purge, and often expensive shop refits, my advice is about identifying immediate solutions that can be cost effectively implemented to help revitalise the businesses concerned.” he added “Substantial investment is often desirable but not always possible in the prevailing economic climate. We work with the retailers concerned to help them recognise and maximise their existing opportunities, ones that can materially improve performance and lead to future investment if necessary when the economic climate improves”
Our telephone lines are being moved to our new offices this morning (Fdiday 20th) and, as a consequence, or main line 015394 40020, and those associated with it, are presently not available.
BT advise that we should be up and running again by 13.00.
For some of the time we can be contacted via our fax number 015394 46140 or you can contact Bill Smith direct on his mobile 07766 208 082
Also apologies for the intermittent Twitter feed to our website – normal service will hopefully be resumed as quickly as possible
Tesco shares tumbled 16% after it said it was “disappointed” by its seasonal trading in the UK with like-for-like sales, which exclude the effects of new store openings, fell 2.3%, excluding fuel and VAT.
Tesco warned that it expected “minimal” profit growth for the current year as it increases investment, especially in the UK.
The supermarket warned that its profits for the year would be “around the low end of the current consensus range”.
The figures were released on a day when a whole host of UK retailers announced lack lustre performance over the crucial Christmas trading period
Read more of this report from the BBC here
The independent review into the future of our high streets undertaken by Mary Portas has now been published and the full report can be accessed via her official website
The following is a summary of the 28 recommendations made within the report:
1.Put in place a “Town Team”: a visionary, strategic and strong operational management team for high streets
2. Empower successful Business Improvement Districts to take on more responsibilities and powers and become “Super-BIDs”
3. Legislate to allow landlords to become high street investors by contributing to their Business Improvement District
4. Establish a new “National Market Day” where budding shopkeepers can try their hand at operating a low-cost retail business
5. Make it easier for people to become market traders by removing unnecessary regulations so that anyone can trade on the high street unless there is a valid reason why not
6. Government should consider whether business rates can better support small businesses and independent retailers
7. Local authorities should use their new discretionary powers to give business rate concessions to new local businesses
8. Make business rates work for business by reviewing the use of the RPI with a view to changing the calculation to CPI
9. Local areas should implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres and we should have a new parking league table
10. Town Teams should focus on making high streets accessible, attractive and safe
11. Government should include high street deregulation as part of their ongoing work on freeing up red tape
12. Address the restrictive aspects of the ‘Use Class’ system to make it easier to change the uses of key properties on the high street
13. Put betting shops into a separate ‘Use Class’ of their own
14. Make explicit a presumption in favour of town centre development in the wording of the National Planning Policy Framework
15. Introduce Secretary of State “exceptional sign off ” for all new out-of-town developments and require all large new developments to have an “affordable shops” quota
16. Large retailers should support and mentor local businesses and independent retailers
17. Retailers should report on their support of local high streets in their annual report
18. Encourage a contract of care between landlords and their commercial tenants by promoting the leasing code and supporting the use of lease structures other than upward only rent reviews, especially for small businesses
19. Explore further disincentives to prevent landlords from leaving units vacant
20. Banks who own empty property on the high street should either administer these assets well or be required to sell them
21. Local authorities should make more proactive use of Compulsory Purchase Order powers to encourage the redevelopment of key high street retail space
22. Empower local authorities to step in when landlords are negligent with new “Empty Shop Management Orders”
23. Introduce a public register of high street landlords
24. Run a high profile campaign to get people involved in Neighbourhood Plans
25. Promote the inclusion of the High Street in Neighbourhood Plans
26. Developers should make a financial contribution to ensure that the local community has a strong voice in the planning system
27. Support imaginative community use of empty properties through Community Right to Buy, Meanwhile Use and a new “Community Right to Try”
28. Run a number of High Street Pilots to test proof of concept
The Governments response will be published early in 2012.
A pilot project by Tesco to run in-store hair and beauty salons has been described by small-business groups as a further threat to independent retailers, many who are already struggling to survive.
The project will see the ‘Regis Salons’ chain offering “luxury at great Tesco prices” in Tesco Extra stores in eight towns and cities in England and Wales.
Concern is being expressed by trade bodies that the development could force further small shop closures on our High Street with customers being attracted away from their traditional hair and beauty treatment providers.
The hair and beauty sector has to date avoided facing the challenges created by the continuing development of product and service diversity being driven by the supermarket chains and, for some, it has been surprising that the hair and beauty sector has not been targeted previously.
For more information click here.
For an up to date review of the impact of the new in store facility in Horwich read the article carried in The Bolton News on the 29th October
Regis Salons are part of the Regis Corporation which owns and operates over 400 salons in the United Kingdom, including brands such as Regis, Supercuts and Sassoon Salon.
In addition, Regis maintains an ownership interest in Provalliance, which operates salons primarily in Europe, under the brands of Jean Louis David, Franck Provost and Saint Algue.
