A few random thoughts:
Mike Ashley is bleating to landlords that they need to be sensible with their rents otherwise more units will close down. He owns a retail unit in Glasgow, Parkhead Forge Retail , and guess what, it has empty units as the landlord wont drop his price.....
Several years ago we had High Streets full of shops, many independent. Many of these were staffed with full and part time permanent workers. The owners paid taxes, staff paid taxes. Staff were able to get mortgages and loans as they had permanent secure jobs. Now we have town centres run down, many workers automatically on minimum wages and more often than not, zero hours contracts. So little chance of getting mortgages, loans etc for the circle of economy. Instead we have online presence like Amazon with shady tax practices, employment practices and many zero hour contracts in place. Mix these practices in with Universal credit issues and you can see why it all has hugely adverse impact on our society.
I recently did some agency work at a local factory. The company is owned by a tax exile who is one of Scotland's wealthiest people. I would say that around 50% of the people working there were agency staff - zero hours contracts, not knowing till you get a text on the Fri afternoon whether you have any shifts the following week. Brutal way to live.
Beales - I actually know one of their senior managers, just texted him to show him my concern.
As many will know I recently ran a chain of charity shops - many customers say they are the scourge of the High St - ask and landlord and they are their preferred tenant now as they know they will have good covenant. But my experience is many landlords are burying their heads in the sand. They have asset values and rental returns that are unrealistic but they are not willing to write these down so would prefer to have them lying empty!
Finally, Councils have waged war on motorists for years, driving them to retail parks for parking. For a town centre to work, on street parking is a necessity. You want customers to be able to come in and park and run to the butcher / baker / bank etc. If you force them into parking in Morrisons car park, guess where they will shop??
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