21 February 2019A new report published today from the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee, ‘High Streets and Town Centres in 2030’, sets out a number of recommendations to the Government to save the country’s high streets.
The report calls for more support and funding for local authorities to help them redevelop town centres, along with an overhaul of business rates and planning regulations, including the abolition of permitted development rules that let developers turn offices into flats without planning permission. The Government is also urged to consider taxing online sales, deliveries or packaging, and cutting property taxes for retailers.
Committee chair Clive Betts MP said that while the “heyday of the high street primarily as a retail hub is at an end,” this “need not be its death knell.”
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