Beyond planning - getting the basics right with bricks and clicks
Welcome to another episode of Retail Reckoning with me, Clare Bailey.
In this week’s show, we move beyond the headlines about planning reforms and tackle what it really takes for the UK high street to thrive.
With the government slashing red tape—think easier outdoor dining permits and fast-track conversions for empty shops—there’s plenty of buzz.
But do these changes address the core issues facing retailers and local economies, or are they just window dressing on deeper challenges?
I'll dive into the harsh realities: rising costs, sky-high rents, inflation, and staff shortages that hit businesses where it hurts most.
I'll explain why planning reforms alone can't solve the affordability crisis for shoppers and shopkeepers, and what actually makes a high street worth visiting in today’s climate.
If you’re ready to get to the heart of what keeps local commerce alive—even in uncertain times—this episode is packed with practical strategies and a candid look at the future of the high street.
So what are you waiting for? Click play!
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
In this episode, we're going to look beyond planning. Getting the basics
Speaker:right, bricks and clicks, enhancing the customer journey and
Speaker:creating places to be proud of. It's about what the UK high
Speaker:street really needs to thrive.
Speaker:Welcome back to the third episode of Retail Reckoning. I'm Claire
Speaker:Bailey and today we're diving into the Government's tearing through red tape again.
Speaker:You'll have seen the headlines. Al fresco dining zones, fast track
Speaker:permits, noise protection for music venues and even auctions for
Speaker:empty high streets. That sounds great, but hang on, let's not pop. The
Speaker:Prosecco just yet
Speaker:owns the floor. Planning
Speaker:reform makes good headlines, but it isn't a magic wand. You can't
Speaker:legislate your way out of economic gravity and you certainly can't
Speaker:save the high street with outdoor seating. Today we're asking
Speaker:what will it really take for the high street to thrive again? And
Speaker:is planning just the sugar coating on a much bigger pie?
Speaker:So let's look at this in more detail. Red tape's been slashed,
Speaker:but there's actually an underlying problem. So what's been
Speaker:offered? Easier al fresco permits, simpler
Speaker:conversions for empty shops, a national licensing
Speaker:overhaul and councils being able to rent out long term vacant
Speaker:units. It's all very good on paper and we do need to remove
Speaker:the silly obstacles. I mean, why would a bakery need nine months of form
Speaker:filling just to put a chair outside? It is important, but the
Speaker:idea of councils auctioning off dead space is great in theory,
Speaker:and who wouldn't want to see a lifeless shop turned into a microbrewery or
Speaker:an artist pop up overnight? But these are not the
Speaker:fixes. The Centre for Cities, to quote
Speaker:them said high street decline is mostly the result of
Speaker:weak local economies. Well, they're bang on. Planning
Speaker:permission doesn't give people more disposable income. Sidewalk
Speaker:cafes don't pay your staff or your business rents. We're not
Speaker:dealing with zoning problems, we're dealing with an affordability crisis. And that's both
Speaker:for the shoppers and for the shopkeepers. And it's been driven by
Speaker:inflation. And when the news headlines say inflation
Speaker:has fallen too, that's just like somebody had their foot
Speaker:on the accelerator all the way to the floor and it was running away at
Speaker:10% and now they've got their foot still on the accelerator,
Speaker:but they're not accelerating as much as they were before. That's not
Speaker:to say that they haven't reached a certain speed.
Speaker:And to put this in context, 10% inflation put
Speaker:prices up 10%. If it drops to 3%,
Speaker:the prices that have already gone up by 10% are now still going
Speaker:up, but only by 3%. That isn't good news.
Speaker:What you almost need is minus numbers in inflation to see
Speaker:prices going back to where they were. Well, that's never going to happen,
Speaker:so something needs to basically change. With that in mind,
Speaker:we need to think about the high costs, the low margins and the stuff
Speaker:that planning can't touch. To give a bit of a list of what's happening,
Speaker:we know that retailers are being squeezed from every angle. Rent sky high,
Speaker:living wages has gone up by over 20% in two years. Energy,
Speaker:insurance and compliance requirements, they've gone through the roof. And now
Speaker:everyone's bracing for national insurance and changes for business rates. The
Speaker:sector is staring down the barrel of an extra 2.3
Speaker:billion in costs. The government is saying they're going to
Speaker:reform rates. But even if that happens, most small
Speaker:shops and businesses with only one outlet already get relief.
Speaker:So the pain of business rates just gets pushed up to the big players.
Speaker:But it's the big players that drive the footfall, that support
Speaker:smaller independents. A few years ago I saw a stat that the perfect
Speaker:town was about 40% multiple and 60%
Speaker:independent. And the multiples are the anchor stores. So if you
Speaker:lose a Greggs, a Boots, a Primark and so on, the whole
Speaker:street will suffer. You need that mix. Unfortunately, we're losing
Speaker:banks as well. Now, banks drove footfall, post offices drove
Speaker:footfall. And as those businesses or organizations
Speaker:disappear, the ones who are left hopefully will
Speaker:drive the footfall. But if they go because their costs
Speaker:have become untenable and the store becomes non profitable,
Speaker:then everyone is going to miss out. I want to look at
Speaker:the economy in more detail and a couple of local examples
Speaker:and it links back to what the Centre for Cities said about it's an economic
Speaker:factor, not something else. So if you take
Speaker:towns like Bradford or Newport, the wages
Speaker:are lower and only one pound in every ten is spent on leisure.
Speaker:The vacancy rates track at around 16%, although it depends who you
Speaker:ask. With vacancy rates, there are different ways of measuring them, but this is based
Speaker:off the same general measure. Now, if you flip that over
Speaker:somewhere like York or central London, the dining
Speaker:spend jumps to 25%, but the
Speaker:vacancy rates are under 9%. So the problem
Speaker:isn't planning or parking or any of these other things that
Speaker:people declare are going to save the high street. The
Speaker:reality is it's pay packets. It doesn't matter what you do
Speaker:with regard to planning reform and changes to all these other structures.
Speaker:What you can't do is design your way out of economic inequality
Speaker:without people earning enough to go out, whether dining or
Speaker:shopping, planning and form, it's like
Speaker:rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Speaker:Iceberg. There's another problem as
Speaker:well. There's a massive skills shortage. There's
Speaker:almost no staff, which means there's no service. It's
Speaker:really, really hard to recruit at the moment, especially in hospitality. And the
Speaker:staff turnover is immense. Retail's high,
Speaker:hospitality's higher and I think I read that gyms were over 100%
Speaker:turnover. Why? Well, people have left
Speaker:the sector, wages aren't keeping up and post
Speaker:Covid the talent pool shrank because with quite a lot of businesses forced to close,
Speaker:people found other jobs. The other issue is
Speaker:we've seen a massive increase in retail crime. Quite frankly,
Speaker:if you are being paid a low wage, would you rather be in a call
Speaker:centre where you're remote from the customer or in a shop where
Speaker:people get spat at, abused verbally and worse?
Speaker:And both the Retail Trust and the British Retail Consortium
Speaker:are really trying to encourage more emphasis on
Speaker:police intervention over retail crime because it isn't just
Speaker:shoplifting, it's a whole lot worse. In fact, if you go back to
Speaker:2020, a survey of retail leaders
Speaker:said 99% were worried about finding staff and that's
Speaker:at all levels. Of course, planning reform isn't going to change that.
Speaker:You can't run a pop up cafe in your empty unit if there's nobody there
Speaker:to actually make and serve coffee. Then we also have to look at what
Speaker:customer expectations are and they've changed too.
Speaker:We used to talk about omnichannel, multichannel bricks and clicks and so
Speaker:on, whatever you want to call it. And it used to be sort of the
Speaker:panacea, I would say now that is the absolute
Speaker:minimum expectation. As retailers and businesses in
Speaker:high streets and so on, there's certain things we can control.
Speaker:The digital presence, the quality of our click and collect
Speaker:the Google business profile, our local SEO through our E commerce, if we've
Speaker:got one stock visibility online and
Speaker:I mean I've mentioned this in previous episodes, but if you don't show up when
Speaker:someone Googles bike repair near me, you're pretty much
Speaker:invisible. Whoever does show up gets that business. They may not
Speaker:be the cheapest but they're the most discoverable. And
Speaker:really a lot of people think online is taken away from the high street,
Speaker:but actually the online footprint, whether it be social, Google
Speaker:business, E commerce, any of those things that should
Speaker:be sending footfall to your door. Argos is a Brilliant
Speaker:example. They've absolutely nailed it. They've got reserve online and collecting
Speaker:store. They've got all sorts of other methods by which customers
Speaker:can interact and engage. It's simple and it's effective and
Speaker:it's efficient. Because whilst I've been to a number of outlets
Speaker:where they've been rummaging around trying to find my particular parcel,
Speaker:that's never happened to me when I bought from Argos. I mean it doesn't
Speaker:take much for a small business to set up an E commerce.
Speaker:You don't need a fancy e commerce empire, a simple
Speaker:Shopify site or WooCommerce or one of the low cost
Speaker:or no cost platforms, a Google shopping feed,
Speaker:some local Facebook ads, or even just being in local Facebook groups
Speaker:and having an active page, perhaps a QR code on your window to
Speaker:bring people to the online store when you're closed. The thing is,
Speaker:it's not about being overly sophisticated or overthinking
Speaker:it. It's just about the customer journey. Smart
Speaker:joined up retail bricks and clicks and that isn't
Speaker:innovation anymore. That's the basics, that's what it takes to
Speaker:survive. Another area where I feel that more
Speaker:businesses should take more attention and also work with the local
Speaker:authorities and business improvement districts and so on is creating
Speaker:public realm improvements and partnerships. The way I
Speaker:see it is that retail doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Speaker:As I mentioned, you know, if you lose your anchor stores then you
Speaker:actually lose footfall to your smaller stores. It proves that
Speaker:the whole ecosystem brings the traffic. It's not just
Speaker:one business in isolation. Of course, one business has to market
Speaker:themselves and what they have to offer their customer experience and so on, but
Speaker:it's also about the whole place. There's a law in
Speaker:geographical terms that says that people like to go to places
Speaker:where they don't live. But if that's the case, people that don't
Speaker:live in your town will be coming to your town and you might be going
Speaker:to another town. And that's just because they like to shop in places
Speaker:that are new and fresh and explore. But people also
Speaker:like the comfort of shopping in places that they like,
Speaker:that they feel are safe. So
Speaker:cleanliness, safety, lighting in the evening, the
Speaker:ability to walk around, be able to cross the road if you you've got
Speaker:a town centre that's bisected by a large highway, for instance,
Speaker:and I've seen a few of those where one side of the road struggles and
Speaker:the other side of the road thrives. And it's also
Speaker:these days, let's be honest, Is it Instagrammable? So
Speaker:it's about spending in public spaces and perhaps creating collaborations
Speaker:to encourage the spend in public spaces. Greenery, trees and
Speaker:planters, benches, places to sit and have a
Speaker:sandwich, murals, street art, street art,
Speaker:installation markets, pop up, music, events, all
Speaker:the sort of things that create vibrancy and a happy environment.
Speaker:There are some places that do this really, really well and others
Speaker:that could go a bit further. One of my colleagues, for example, is co founder
Speaker:of Visit Knoll, effectively a destination marketing organization
Speaker:hybridized with a business improvement district. Some of the things they've
Speaker:achieved through that collaboration with the retailers and the board,
Speaker:who are also a bunch of small business owners and local people themselves,
Speaker:have been quite impressive for effectively a small town
Speaker:on the edges of Solihull. It's about creating that sense
Speaker:of it's such a nice place, I enjoy going here. It's clean,
Speaker:it's safe, it's walkable and it's Instagrammable. The other thing is
Speaker:that every pound spent on Public Realm will
Speaker:almost certainly trigger more private investment because what it does is it
Speaker:makes a place look more desirable. If a retailer is looking
Speaker:to open a first store or a second or a third or a hundredth, they
Speaker:will be doing some location analysis and they'll be looking at the demographic
Speaker:and they'll also be looking at the desirability of the area.
Speaker:Do I want my brand to be positioned here?
Speaker:Now we all know what a rundown high street looks like
Speaker:and we all know what kind of businesses would be expected to be
Speaker:found in a lower end demographic in a rundown high
Speaker:street. I won't name any brand names of course. We also
Speaker:all know what a thriving market town looks like
Speaker:with pretty cake shops, cafes, al fresco
Speaker:dining a couple of times a week. There's a market, it's clean, it's
Speaker:inviting, it's pretty, and there's always something to do. They're
Speaker:places where people who have spending power like to go. So
Speaker:what could you as the business trading there do to help your
Speaker:entire place improve its appeal? Not just
Speaker:to the locals, but actually to those people who want to pop
Speaker:out somewhere new for the day. So it's really
Speaker:all of this good stuff is about priming the pump to bring people in.
Speaker:And as I mentioned, I don't expect any retailers to grow alone or you might
Speaker:be the catalyst, but there could be a bid or a council
Speaker:or a town team or a destination marketing organization who
Speaker:can represent the area. And if you rally a
Speaker:few neighbors and approach them with a joined up
Speaker:proposal and a Joined up effort. Then it's amazing what
Speaker:can be achieved. It's not just about street cleaning,
Speaker:it's about creating an environment where people want to go.
Speaker:It's again, not one size fits all. For instance,
Speaker:where you have pedestrianization, but it means that deliveries can't
Speaker:get in, or it confuses drivers and they can't find the
Speaker:parking that will backfire. All of this should be done in
Speaker:consultation with the local community and not done
Speaker:to them. They must have the desire as well
Speaker:for all of this to happen and understand it enhances their
Speaker:experience as opposed to causing them an inconvenience.
Speaker:Then we need to think about a smarter commercial strategy. I
Speaker:like to say don't play shops.
Speaker:So this is for the retailers. You've got to treat your
Speaker:business like a business. It's not a hobby, it's not a hope.
Speaker:If it is a hobby, fine, fair enough. Expect to lose your
Speaker:life savings. It probably won't make money unless you treat
Speaker:it like a business. So what do businesses have to think about? Who's
Speaker:the customer? Exactly? What is it are you offering? Therefore, what
Speaker:is your range? What products are you going to stock at the detail level,
Speaker:at what price points and what margins? And are the prices
Speaker:aligned with the perceived value? You need to get the mix
Speaker:right, the pricing and promotions right, and you need to trim the fat so that
Speaker:you've got a curated range. Customers are often overwhelmed with
Speaker:choice. I mean, think about it. Nowadays if you go to
Speaker:the shampoo aisle in a supermarket, there's that many. I
Speaker:just look at it all and walk away because it's
Speaker:just overwhelming. There's often too much choice and choice can
Speaker:put people off. So a nicely curated range with maybe good,
Speaker:better, best, that keeps things simple. It provides
Speaker:solutions for a sensible range of budgets. Even if
Speaker:your ideal customer has got a good spending power, there'll still be some
Speaker:months they've had a big bill come in and they might have to trade down.
Speaker:So a good, better, best scenario always works and
Speaker:keeps customers happy without overwhelm and all that. Commercial
Speaker:strategy's fine. But above everything else,
Speaker:you've got to train the team. Service is edge,
Speaker:consultative sales. Knowing how to curate the sale,
Speaker:knowing when to step away and knowing when to step in. Upsell, cross,
Speaker:sell. It seems to be a lost skill. I'm sorry to say, but
Speaker:you often go into a retailer and the assistant grunts at you.
Speaker:Morning. It's awful. But you know what? When you meet a
Speaker:friendly, knowledgeable assistant who knows you and
Speaker:knows that knowing you is worth more than any Fancy
Speaker:signage. That's a bit of a joy, because working
Speaker:with a retailer means that you're actually their
Speaker:representative to the customer. Another thing, I've mentioned prep before.
Speaker:In a previous episode, Prep once said at a conference I was at
Speaker:that they didn't recruit on CVS and
Speaker:skills, they recruited on attitude. Because as long as somebody had a
Speaker:happy, open, willing attitude, you could pretty
Speaker:much teach them everything else they needed to know. And that really stuck with me,
Speaker:because you could meet somebody who's the best barista in the world,
Speaker:but if they're rude to the other members of the staff and they're grumpy with
Speaker:customers, they're just going to create problems for you. But there's
Speaker:nothing to stop you teaching a happy, smiley person with no skills whatsoever how to
Speaker:be the best barista in the world. And chances are they'll be even better, because
Speaker:not only will they make great coffee, they'll make people smile. And I've
Speaker:also mentioned moments of joy. Great service is
Speaker:unfortunately quite uncommon. So giving really good
Speaker:service, helping customers, facilitating
Speaker:knowing the product actually can be a moment of joy.
Speaker:Especially if you're unfamiliar with a purchase because you think, oh, thank
Speaker:goodness, you've made my life so much easier today. In this case, I remember
Speaker:my grandmother trying to go and find, I think it was some kind
Speaker:of game for my son for Christmas. She hadn't got a clue what she was
Speaker:doing, but she went into a couple of stores and they just went, the games
Speaker:are over there, and left her to it. And she was a bit like, I
Speaker:don't know what I'm doing. But then somebody came and said, you look a bit
Speaker:confused, madam. Would you like me to help you? And she phoned me and said,
Speaker:I met this really lovely lady and she helped me and I hope I've got
Speaker:the right thing. And she had, and it made all the difference. Now, if that
Speaker:person hadn't approached her, she wouldn't have spent her money there.
Speaker:And that's why it's so important. And also, she rang me to
Speaker:tell me about what a great experience she'd had. Now, if you extrapolate
Speaker:that to the modern world, that might go on a Facebook post,
Speaker:or on an Instagram or on a TikTok, who knows?
Speaker:But if somebody has a great experience, unfortunately, it's so rare that they
Speaker:do talk about it. Oh, they definitely talk about bad experiences,
Speaker:they're very vocal about those. But, yeah, they do talk about good
Speaker:experiences. So it's always worth making sure that you train your
Speaker:team in the best possible customer Service. And the other thing is
Speaker:linking to the place activities above. Collaborate.
Speaker:Could you cross promote your business with some other
Speaker:business that shares a similar customer base? So, for example, if you
Speaker:do children's shoes and there's a toy shop down the road, what's to say you
Speaker:couldn't buddy up with each other and help cross promote? And both
Speaker:in the real world and on social media, local groups
Speaker:on Facebook and destination marketing organizations
Speaker:have often supported local businesses with promotional
Speaker:posts, lovely photography and so on. And if all the businesses
Speaker:shared each other's posts onto each other's social
Speaker:pages, that would really amplify. And it's
Speaker:not about, well, that's taking the customer off me. If you have
Speaker:one customer, but each of 10 businesses have one customer, potentially that means
Speaker:10 businesses, 10 customers. And that's why it works. And even if
Speaker:this week they spend with your neighbor, next week their
Speaker:neighbor's customer might spend with you. So it's about taking that leap
Speaker:of faith and not being so protective about your customer base and
Speaker:opening up to collaborate within the local area. There's a couple of other
Speaker:initiatives I've seen things like shop local passports, shared
Speaker:loyalty cards between businesses. In Destination
Speaker:Lincolnshire, they have the Lincolnshire gift card, which is
Speaker:something that provides the opportunity for venues like hotels
Speaker:and Airbnb type places to give a gift on
Speaker:a card that can only be spent within the local participating
Speaker:businesses. So it keeps the money in the local economy. But all of this
Speaker:is just about being proactive, visible and joined up.
Speaker:The thing is, there's no fairy tales about the high street, but there is a
Speaker:future. The fact is, the high street in some streets. Think about
Speaker:the historic high streets we've got in the UK. They've been around for between three
Speaker:and 500 years. It started out as housing, but maybe
Speaker:with a market stall in front of the house, and then the stall became
Speaker:the shop at the bottom and the accommodation was above.
Speaker:And it's evolved and it's always been evolving and it's been
Speaker:changing with transport and the way people live their lives.
Speaker:When women started to go out to work full time, for
Speaker:instance, it changed the footfall pattern. And the high street
Speaker:didn't die, it didn't suddenly disappear, it's still
Speaker:there. But what's happening within each and every high street
Speaker:matters. So it's evolving and it's evolving far faster than ever
Speaker:before. Footfall's still a bit bumpy, to say the
Speaker:least. Budgets are tight, but the bright spots
Speaker:are there are mixed use precincts. They're quite resilient.
Speaker:Perhaps with skate parks, graffiti areas and other things to do
Speaker:so so that any behavior that might have been considered antisocial has its
Speaker:own zone. And graffiti artists are encouraged to do
Speaker:their graffiti within a place. Certainly I've seen
Speaker:something on the south bank in London which is a brilliant example of this.
Speaker:Retail parks are holding their own, but of course they're not
Speaker:necessarily positive to the high street. However, shopping centres within
Speaker:town centres are very positive. And the one thing
Speaker:that is absolutely clear, the good digital integration
Speaker:really does drive footfall. But I do want to say it again
Speaker:loud and clear. Stop playing shops,
Speaker:start being a really viable business. Cutting red tape
Speaker:is great, but it isn't the main course. We need customers with money,
Speaker:streets worth visiting and retailers that do the basics
Speaker:brilliantly. And this means smarter costs, smarter
Speaker:marketing, smarter streets. There's no point being nostalgic
Speaker:about what it was like in the 70s with the butcher, the baker and the
Speaker:candlestick maker. This is about strategy that's relevant today and into the
Speaker:future. I think with the right focus
Speaker:and planning, our high streets can honestly thrive again. They
Speaker:won't be the same, but they should be proud, profitable and
Speaker:worth a visit. Hopefully you found today's episode useful.
Speaker:If you did, please share it, rate it, subscribe. You know the drill.
Speaker:If you're a retailer, place manager or policymaker with skin in the
Speaker:game, I'd be happy to talk. This is Retail Reckoning. I'm
Speaker:Claire Bailey. I'll speak to you next time. Yeah, Retail
Speaker:reckoning. Retail reckoning.
Speaker:No space for dusty shelves? Cause
Speaker:retail reckoning owns the floor.
Speaker:Sam.
