Mary Portas is 権利, the High Street is dying. But her recipe for 活動／戦闘 is doomed to fail

By Michael Hanlon for the Daily Mail
Updated: 16:33 BST, 19 December 2011

Shopping queen Mary Portas says our high streets are dying and has come up with a recipe for 活動／戦闘. I agree with her diagnosis, but wonder at her prescription ? a combination of cutting red tape, changes to parking 規則s and 緩和 of 会議 rents and changes to planning 法律s.

It all makes sense, but I have 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な 疑問s whether Ms Portas’s recipe will work because what is happening to our high streets is both hugely 利益／興味ing and probably unstoppable.

Too little, too late: I have 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な 疑問s whether Ms Portas's recipe to 直す／買収する，八百長をする the High Street will work

Britain’s towns and cities are changing, more 速く than at any time since the War. Whole classes of 商売／仕事 ? travel 機関s, bookshops, 記録，記録的な／記録する 蓄える／店s to 指名する three - have almost 中止するd to 存在する. This isn’t because of planning 法律s, rents or 後退，不況s but because holidays, 調書をとる／予約するs and music are now sold mostly online.

The High Street travel スパイ／執行官 is going the way of the High Street candlestick 製造者, swept away by a tide of 科学（工学）技術. One in seven shops in the UK lies empty and 5,500 are in 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な danger of 終結.We now have to ask what the ‘High Street’ is for, whether it can be saved and even whether it is 価値（がある） saving.

Where I grew up, in Bournemouth in the 1970s, we had a small parade of shops 一連の会議、交渉／完成する the corner consisting (I can remember each and every one of them) a florist, a モーター spares shop, a second-手渡す dress shop, a newsagent/tobacconist, a butcher, a greengrocer, a general grocer, a shop that 修理d vacuum cleaners, a pet shop, a fishmongers and an antique/art shop ? and that was just on the one 味方する of the road.

Gone but not forgotten: The days where High Street's were lined with a butcher, a greengrocer and a fishmonger are long gone

This is the sort of 運ぶ／漁獲高 that would be held as a 向こうずねing example ? a fishmonger! - of how a High Street could be, yet there are few places in the UK these days where you can buy fresh fish, flowers, hamsters, vegetables, frocks, meat, antiques and bits for your Hoover/MGB GT all from separate 商売／仕事s in a stretch of about 200 metres.?

Indeed, that same parade of shops now consists (the last time I looked, this may have changed) of a 二塁打 glazing shop, two 商売／仕事s selling 保険/credit, a beauticians, a 二塁打 glazing shop, an 広い地所 スパイ／執行官, a Thai restaurant a? 乾燥した，日照りの cleaners and a shop selling bathrooms. Of the 初めの 顔触れ, only the car spares shop is still in 商売／仕事. Four or five of the 前提s are empty.

No 動きやすい phone unlockers, no charity shops but a 公正に／かなり depressing representati ve of a dingy and uniform 21st Century high street nonetheless. The question is, why has this happened? It is not as though this part of southern England has suddenly lost its taste for meat and vegetables, or become suddenly much poorer.

In the 1970s most shopping was done by women, who often did not have 接近 to a car and who often did not work. ‘Going to the shops’ meant going on foot. いつかs it was a drudge, more often a social occasion. My mother and grandmother knew pretty 井戸／弁護士席 all our 地元の shopkeepers 本人自身で ? indeed for awhile my grandmother was one herself, setting up the second-手渡す dress shop in her 70s.

Received 知恵 says it was the supermarkets that killed the High Street but this is not 完全に true. There were supermarkets in the 1970s, 1960s even, and everyone went to them. And remember that in フラン, where most towns still 誇る an eclectic 範囲 of 商売／仕事s, there is always a 大規模な hypermarket on every （犯罪の）一味 road.

扶養家族: We have become reliant on the convenience of the supermarket

What has changed is time. We used to take it for 認めるd that 得るing 必須の 供給（する）s was a d aily chore. Now few people want to do this. We went to the greengrocer, butcher and so on to augment the stuff we had run out of from Sainsbury’s. Today we just 運動 to Sainsbury’s again.

‘Shopping’ used to be about getting the 必須のs of life. Now the very word has 突然変異するd to mean something different 完全に, an 演習 in 目だつ 消費 and acquisitiveness usually 回転するing around 着せる／賦与するing (and 着せる／賦与するs are sold in town centres, not on 郊外の high streets). Our lives, many of us seem to believe, are far too exciting to waste time buying cabbages and haddock.

Nowadays most women work, 除去するing at a 一打／打撃 maybe 80% of a High Street’s 可能性のある custom. It is 利益／興味ing that the only shop which 生き残るs from my childhood days is one that caters predominantly to men.

Then there are the cars. Again, we can overstate how different the past was to today. In 1970 there were about 10 million より小数の cars on the roads than there are today but even then the 大多数 of middle-income 世帯s had 接近 to at least one モーター 乗り物. But even so, the last 40 years have seen a 革命 in how we use our cars to shop.

We can 非難する the 深い river of cretinism that runs through most of Britain’s town halls for what happened next. First, across the country planning officers 認めるd 許可 for hundreds of grim, identikit out-of-town 商店街s usually 錨，総合司会者d on a supermarket. And Britons, unlike the French who still enjoy shopping for food in small shops and markets for its own sake, flocked to these new centres.

会議s which would invoke the wrath of Beelzebub himself upon any hapless householder who dared to 延長する his loft past the re gulation six インチs, merrily 調印するd away millions of acres of greenbelt to be subsumed under a tide of 固める／コンクリート and steel sheds, surrounded by millions of acres more of car parking. (Of course, 汚職 and backhanders had nothing どれでも to do with any of this).

反対する-生産力のある: The 最近の obsession with screwing parking 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金s (and 罰金s) out of 運転者s is squeezing the life out of Britain's High Streets

Then, having done everything within their 力／強力にするs to make sure we had become 扶養家族 upon our cars, the same 会議s then decided to make it almost impossible for us to use them in the 広大な／多数の／重要な War on Parking.

The 最近の obsession with screwing parking 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金s (and 罰金s) out of 運転者s is squeezing the life out of Britain’s High Streets. In other countries they do it 異なって. Most small French towns have a 解放する／自由な car park, and wouldn’t dream of 運動ing away custom by clamping and 牽引するing in the way we do. In Queensland ‘parking angels’ 最高の，を越す up メーターs for 運転者s who have 逸脱するd outside their time 限界. T ry that here and they’d probably 直面する 起訴 for 奪うing the 会議 (or whatever 会社／堅い of larcenous cowboys has won the parking-施行 契約) of 歳入.

Finally, there is the Internet. Over Christmas we will collectively spend about £13.5bn online. Even ten years ago that 人物／姿／数字 was いっそう少なく than 10% of that. And ten years before that, 無. In 1992 (let alone 1972) there was no アマゾン, no Ocado, no Ryanair, no lastminute.com. The 早期に 1990s do not seem long ago, but in 小売 条件 this was the 時代 of woad and 物々交換するing sheep.? The shopping landscape has changed more in the last 20 years thanks to the advent of a 選び出す／独身 科学（工学）技術 than it did in the previous 100.

Britain’s High Streets today are in a period of 移行. The 無分別な of creditmongers, mortgage shops, 独房-phone unlockers and endless beauticians are a symptom of 都市の 混乱. Think of these 商売／仕事s not as the endpoint of 拒絶する／低下する but as 一時的な parasites that have 始める，決める up home on the carcass of the old High Street while it を受けるs a metamorphosis.

So, what of the 未来? I do not think the High Street will die, but it will become unrecognisable. Most 郊外の parades will 簡単に be 変えるd to other uses, probably 居住の. Small 伝統的な town centres may yet 栄える if 会議s can be 説得するd to see sense over parking. 商売／仕事s that 供給する personal 専門家 services will do 井戸／弁護士席 at the expense of those who 簡単に take your cash at the till. We may be a nation of shopkeepers, but we are a nation of extraordinarily incompetent shopkeepers. In Denmark, to be a greengrocer you have to go on a course and sit exams; here, you 単に have to 論証する that you cannot （一定の）期間.

力／強力にする of the アマゾン: It is 利益／興味ing that while we now buy music almost 排他的に online, the gadgets we use to play that music on are 普通は bought in person

Shops which 追加する no value will not ? should not ? compete with the Web, which can 配達する the same stuff for far いっそう少なく (and with no hassle). It is 利益／興味ing that while we now buy music almost 排他的に on-line, the gadgets we use to play that music on are often still bought in person; 科学（工学）技術 is a fiddly 商売／仕事 and we want the 安心 of 専門的知識 not just a couple of clicks on アマゾン reviews. Travel スパイ／執行官s selling cheap holidays to the Med will disappear (are there any left?), but the specialists, 申し込む／申し出ing tailor-made exotic trips will 生き残る.

推定する／予想する more eccentric shops ? antiques, collectables - and weird stuff. Shops that do (修理s, alterations, 昇格s) rather than 単に sell.?? The old high street is dying.? A new high street will 現れる. Sadly, we are seeing the ぎこちない 移行 and it is not a pretty sight.