Retail guru welcomes £10m innovation fund but says she wants the government to take more radical action
The government will on Friday announce plans to pump more than £10m into run-down high streets around the country as it responds to last year's independent review by TV retail guru Mary Portas, but is already coming under fire for failing to support some of the report's hardest-hitting recommendations.
In its formal response, the government is expected to say it has accepted "virtually all" 28 recommendations, which included establishing a national market day and relaxing rules so that empty shops could be turned into gyms and creches.
Details of the response will be announced by Grant Shapps, the minister for housing and local government. It is expected to include a new £10m taxpayer-funded high street "innovation fund" to bring empty shops back into use – which could swell to £30m if councils and landlords get behind it.
It is also likely to back Portas's call to cut red tape by helping councils revoke "archaic bylaws", making it easier for new markets and businesses to get off the ground, and to look at measures to coax back people put off by high car parking charges.
But it remained unclear on Thursday whether the government would support Portas's more controversial ideas. Portas said she welcomed the extra money, but expressed disappointment the government was not going further, such as demanding the secretary of state have an exceptional right to decide the fate of new out-of-town developments.
She said: "I would have liked greater central intervention in critical areas such as change of use, parking, business rates and the sign-off of new out-of-town developments."
James Lowman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores, also said it was a missed opportunity that threatened to undermine all the work to revive high streets: "You can't have strong high streets if out-of-town retail parks are springing up at the alarming rate we are seeing now, with 80% of new grocery development located out of town." Outside central London, visitors to high streets have fallen by about 10% over the last three years.
Other groups, including the British Council of Shopping Centres, complained the government had not tackled the "urgent" issue of reviewing business rates.
The squeeze on consumer spending triggered by the financial crisis has accelerated the rate of high street decline, with one in seven shops now empty. Clinton Cards added to the gloom on Thursday, blaming weak consumer confidence for its woes as it fell to a loss of £3.7m on sales of £197m in the six months to 29 January.
Its chief executive, Darcy Willson-Rymer, insisted it would not suffer the same fate as computer game retailer Game Group, which has gone into administration. Despite warning of a worsening outlook, he said cards were an emotional purchase and shoppers would continue to visit shops to select the right one.In a sign of the tough turnaround Willson-Rhymer, who joined from Starbucks last year, has on his hands he has hired executives with experience of private equity, financial restructuring and multichannel retailing. Next month he will unveil a shake-up that is expected to result in the closure of some of the group's 767 stores which attract an onerous £80m annual rent bill.
The government has already been experimenting with Portas's idea to create a network of "town teams" charged with turning their local shopping parades into social places "bustling with people, services and jobs". In has already agreed to fund a dozen "Portas Pilots, worth up to £100,000 each, and having received "hundreds" of applications from around the country will say today that the scheme is to be extended.