City centres must become less reliant on retail in order to thrive

A new report from the Centre for Cities think tank has argued that too many city centres are over-dependent on retail, and must swap shops for offices, housing and public space to transform their economic prospects.

Building Blocks: The role of commercial space in Local Industrial Strategies examines the composition of commercial space in UK cities, and the implications this has for their economies, and warns that struggling high streets have too many shops – but not enough demand for commercial space from other businesses, and other uses such as housing and leisure.

Centre for Cities also highlights that the high number of empty shops in struggling city centres reflects broader economic challenges they face. For example, the centres of Newport and Blackpool – where retail accounts for half of commercial space, but one in four shops are vacant – have also seen a decrease in jobs in recent decades.

The report makes a number of recommendations on the role of commercial space, including city centres reducing their reliance on retail, and instead focusing on creating a better environment for other firms, focusing on making their city centres better places to live, work and play in and managing the pressures of growth, and the squeeze on land and property it brings.

Andrew Carter, chief executive of Centre for Cities, said: “Each day seems to bring a new crisis for the high street, but the answer is not to double down on the declining retail sector. Instead, we need to reimagine struggling city centres as places where lots of different businesses can locate and create jobs – and where lots of people want to go to for a variety of reasons.

“This means reducing the reliance on shops, and focusing on creating a more attractive environment for a wider range of firms. We also need to make our high streets more open and appealing spaces for people to spend time or live in, by improving public realm and transport links, and potentially introducing more housing. Of course, repurposing high streets for other uses can be a difficult and costly process, and some cities will need investment from government to support that transition. But it will  be crucial in transforming the fortunes of our city centres, and the prospects of people living or working in them.”