High Streets are changing, Government policy must adapt
Two years ago the Government announced that Mary Portas would lead an independent review into the future of the high street. Its aim was to come up with suggestions for government, local authorities and businesses to “take action to save our high streets”.
At the time ministers promised it would herald the “vanguard of a high street revolution”. While the Prime Minister no less said he was “confident” it would “help us in our drive to create vibrant and diverse high streets.”
This hasn’t materialized and the carnage we continue to see on the high street through record insolvencies, thousands of job losses and boarded up shops tells another story. High street policy isn’t working. A different approach is needed – fast.
Your views on this matter!
The Grimsey Review is an alternative review available to all political parties in order to shape policy and action plans that when implemented will make a difference. We started from a recognition that the high street model as we know it is finished. We need a radical transformation for it to have any chance of survival. Anything short of this is just window dressing keeping a failed model on a life-support machine.
Read the review yourself and think about how you may lobby your local MP to adopt these plans to prepare our Town Centres for the twenty first century.
I’ll be consulting widely and if you have views on the future of the high street, please email your thoughts here: highstreetreview@gmail.com
“Veteran retailer Bill Grimsey comes out fighting in a no-holds barred shake-up of the debate on High Streets and retail regeneration in his feisty and practical book “Sold Out”. I love his take on the whole debate. At last, we have someone with inside knowledge (and 45 years experience) sticking his neck out and swimming against the tide of rose-tinted blether!”
The time has now come to work out what happened, learn lessons from our mistakes and find a new way forward to make new and innovative use of our shattered town centres.
SOLD OUT
“Sold Out will make uncomfortable reading, but if you are at all serious about making your High Street a better place, the solution starts here.”
“Bill Grimsey offers a practical and realistic vision for the future of the High Street, which can cater for the needs we really have today.”
“If retailing needs a “Big Bang” moment, then this is a hand grenade of a book” – Joe Cushnan
If you are at all serious about making your High Street a better place, the solution starts here.
In recent years, campaigns have been galvanised to ‘save the High Street’. It seems everyone has a view about how we can revamp our down-at-heel towns and cities. But are they all missing the point?
Veteran retailer Bill Grimsey argues that it is already too late. The High Street as we have grown to know it, is good as dead already. So what happens next?
SIgn Up now
The Grimsey Report 2021
Click here to download the new Grimsey Report “Against the Odds” here.
