Can the high street be saved?

Andy Burnham thinks he can save the high street by stopping bookies and vape shops opening. I disagree.

 

The idea that the high street can be revived by killing off the few remaining businesses that are able to operate on it is just silly. These companies are not taking up shopfronts that WH Smith (now TG Jones!) is desperate to use. They are on the high street because WH Smith has gone.

The high street of the future will have fewer shops and those shops will be devoted to services - pubs, coffee shops, key-cutters, ice cream parlours, repair shops, cafés and, yes, barbers. The rest should be turned into residential housing.

 

Read the rest on my Substack. 

 

With weary predictability, the prohibitionists are taking the win but immediately demanding more.