Town Centre High Streets are in Crisis, Robert Eggleston Calls for Action

Robert Eggleston, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Mid Sussex calls for a new plan to save the high street

National store closures reached a five year high in the first half of 2019 with 2,868 closures. It represents a 6.5% increase from 2018 and continues a trend that has been running for several years. Restaurant closures are running at 18 per week.

Growth of online retail

There are several reasons for this. The growth in online retailing is one part and is expected to account for 53% of retail sales within the next 10 years.

Rising costs and high debt

Both the retail and restaurant sectors are facing rising costs, with fashion stores particularly vulnerable to the fall in the pound. Some, like New Look, are struggling with a high debt burden which they have been struggling to service and other expanded to rapidly into a sector which became over-supplied.

Business Rates

Business rates has an impact with the burden bearing more heavily, as a percentage of their trade, on high street stores than it does on global corporations such as Amazon.

Delayed regeneration

Mid Sussex is not immune from these impacts. In addition, Burgess Hill, one of the three towns in the constituency has been held back by a delayed regeneration project

Town and village centres are the beating heart of our communities and we need to protect them.

Reboot the High Street

Changing shopping habits means high streets need to adapt but if they are to remain viable and footfall increased. But they also need more help from local councils and national government.

• A minimum of two hours free-parking in all council owned car parks in Burgess Hill, East Grinstead and Haywards Heath.
• Create community partnership schemes to help establish and support local independent businesses, with a share of profits re-invested in the local community
• Encourage the creation of town and village discount card schemes to help keep more trade in local communities
• Provide more opportunities for small high street start up units and the creation of local markets
• Replace the unfair business rates, which hurts small businesses and pubs, with a fairer, commercial land owner levy.
• Widen the scope of and increase the budget of the Future High Streets Fund to provide support to more town centres.
• Consult on measures to create a level playing field between online and high street retail by considering green delivery taxes and online sales taxes.