“We have spent almost 60 years damaging our high streets,” retail expert tells Government committee
Professor Leigh Sparks gave evidence at the UK Government's Scottish Affairs Committee meeting
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Changes in taxation and business rates are crucial if Scotland’s high streets are to get the boost they need after six decades of damage, a retail expert will tell the UK Government’s Scottish Affairs Committee today (Wednesday).
Leigh Sparks, Professor of Retail Studies at the University of Stirling, told the Committee that business taxation needed an overhaul, to give fairer treatment to local businesses compared to large, out-of-town retailers.
More data needed
He suggests using a rates system that more closely mirrors policy directions, reducing VAT on building renovation, and improving public transport, particularly buses, as possible solutions. He claims that the current taxation fails to recognise the prominence of online retailing, now 30 years old, and says more consistent data is needed to inform better decisions on town centres and high streets.
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Professor of Retail Studies
The high street is not dead; it is though battered and bruised from 60 years of challenge and change. It is adapting and altering, renewing itself, albeit in a partial, fragmented and spatially differentiated way.
“Research shows local businesses generate more local spending and local recycling of wealth, but we choose not to support them in the way they need,” said Professor Sparks.
“A grown-up, root and branch review of business and place taxation is long overdue. It is clear that the levers we have are not being pulled and that we have been asleep in this area for the last 30-plus years.”
Lessons to be learned
Professor Sparks, world-renowned for his research into retailing since the 1980s, is also Chair of Scotland’s Towns Partnership and Made in Stirling Community Interest Company (CIC). He was asked to give oral evidence on Wednesday, 21 January as part of an inquiry announced by the UK Government in November on the future of Scotland’s high streets. The Scottish Affairs Committee will look at what lessons can be learned from successful town centre regeneration to explore how Scotland’s high streets and town centres can have a positive future.
Professor Sparks added: “We have spent almost 60 years damaging our high streets. The high street is not dead; it is though battered and bruised from 60 years of challenge and change. It is adapting and altering, renewing itself, albeit in a partial, fragmented and spatially differentiated way. If we want thriving high streets and town centres, then we need to provide consistent, collaborative and joined-up action and decision making.
“We have the basis and core of this through strong policy and practice in Scotland but the UK and Scotland could be more aligned and we require the catalyst of structural and systemic change to unlock greater and faster investment.”