Walk down too many high streets and within five minutes you know everything you need to know. You know whether people feel proud of where they live, whether they’re investing in their neighbourhood, whether they believe the future here is worth betting on.
A boarded-up parade of shops doesn’t just look grim, it sends a message: nobody’s coming. Nobody cares. We’ve all been there. We’ve all walked past the shuttered units, the hand-written “closing down” signs that nobody took away.
And we all know the opposite feeling too.
A thriving parade of local shops doesn’t just bring jobs. It brings relationships. Not just goods and services, but friendship and loyalty. It’s where community actually happens, face to face, week after week. That’s why our little parades of shops, shopping centres and high streets matter so much more than economists give them credit for.
So, who are the villains?
First, the organised crime groups that have taken over literally thousands of shops fronts all over the country to launder and flog whatever makes the most money that week. Laughing gas. Soft and hard drugs. Laundering cash through cash points. Immigration offences and people smuggling. You name it.
Closing these shops is too hard. The law doesn’t allow long-term closure orders. We don’t have enough CCTV. Nor do we have someone actually in charge of coordinating local police, the National Crime Agency, trading standards, UK Border Force or HMRC day-to-day strike forces focused on clearing up the problem.
Second, when it comes to redevelopment, too often we have distant overseas landlords who let properties rot while councils cannot even find them – ownership buried inside trust-within-trust structures, deliberately untraceable, while the shops beneath stand empty and our high streets die.
Third, we have online giants who pay no fair share while independent retailers drown in business rates. Right now, we are bedevilled by a tax system that punishes the shop on the corner while rewarding the warehouse on the ring road.
The House of Commons Business and Trade Committee, which I chair, has been demanding action, as part of a big, bold ten-point plan for backing our small businesses. Right now, small business is under acute pressure. Cashflow strangled by late payments. Energy bills sky-high with none of the protections larger firms enjoy. A tax system that punishes growth. Skills gaps nobody is filling. Crime rising on every high street.
We’re demanding change across the board: a 30 per cent procurement target, mandatory 30-day payment terms, energy relief schemes, R&D tax reform, management training, stronger enforcement against illegal trading, and a proper long-term business support service.
These steps together would make a big difference in recreating a thriving high street energises everyone around it.
