John Pugh calls for fresh strategy to restore Lord Street’s fortunes

The announcement in the Budget of an increase in the threshold for Small Business Rate Relief is a step in the right direction but what does it mean for Lord St and how much difference does it make ?

Liberal Democrat councillor, John Pugh has been crunching the numbers and looking at the local impact.

“This relief is barely understood”,  he says. 

“Introduced originally by the coalition government to level the field between small high street retailers and big online firms, it has been extended by successive governments.  Extending the relief further to properties with a rateable value of £18,000 as happened in the budget could save a few shopkeepers between £5,000- 7000 which would be welcome, but smaller shops already qualify and are still hard to run or rent.

Rent and wage costs for most shops dwarf the rates so rate relief doesn’t do the trick by itself unless you have a healthy turnover- loads of customers !

We need a whole toolkit of measures to restore Lord St to its former glory.”

Full explanations can be found in video form here   https://vimeo.com/1242025853?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

Cllr. Pugh points out that Lord St in its heigh-day was all about comparison shopping for high value goods (jewellery, furs, clothes and shoes). 

“Lord St was never a normal high street. Unfortunately the process where people walked under verandahs window shopping is now done in people’s homes in front of a PC and Lord St needs to reinvent itself around modern businesses and services that benefit from or need customers to be physically present.

For them Lord St and the joys of walking to and fro between bespoke, probably independent shops is ideal.”

Cllr Pugh though believes that this requires the Council to take a much more proactive retail strategy.”It’s a question of matching businesses with properties and persuading retailers that Lord St suits their business”, says Cllr Pugh.

“The Council needs to market Lord St far and wide. but that needs more commitment, staffing and energy. We cannot rely simply on fiscal measures and the market.”