High Street urged to change to hold on against online retail
04 May 2013
Mark Prisk, the UK's housing and local government minister, said the increasing number of people doing more shopping over the internet could not be ignored by shopkeepers.
Prisk wrote in The Daily Telegraph that the government was doing all it could to help shops survive the economic downturn.
However, he warned that retailers would need to change the way they did their business to appeal to online shoppers, which now accounted for 15 per cent of retail trade.
He said the government wanted to change that and was doing everything it could to address the issues such as ''reducing business rates for small companies, strengthening local planning and encouraging councils to be more flexible with parking.''
He continued: ''We will keep providing support where it is needed, but it takes more than funding to make this work.
''As consumers, our behaviour has changed. High streets need to respond to that change if they are to prosper. Online sales are now 15 per cent of the market, so high streets need to adapt to this quickly.''
The minister's observations came in support of The Daily Telegraph's Reinvent the High Street campaign to put the heart back into the traditional high street.
He added that local communities needed to support their high street shops, given that online shopping now accounted for 15 per cent of retail trade.
The warning came as seven towns were awarded a share of £1 million in return for reviving their high streets by the Department of Communities and Local Government.
The seven communities that won a share of the grant are Herne Hill in south London, Northam Road in Southampton, Altrincham in Greater Manchester, Market Rasen in Lincolnshire, Gloucester and Rotherham.
Rotherham town centre received £268,058 of the High Street Renewal award for creation of a strategy focused on supporting new and existing independent shops, resulting in an 8 per cent increase in footfall.
Gloucester city centre was awarded £133,057 for the launch of a night market while Herne Hill took away £93,057 for helping its market to thrive by cutting red tape.
The High Street Renewal fund, a new government initiative, was set up following the review into how to rejuvenate struggling town centres by retail guru Mary Portas.
