High streets could be turned into housing

A think tank has said that high street shopping units left empty by the collapse of retail businesses should be converted into hundreds of thousands of new homes built by the public sector.

The Social Market Foundation argues that the decline of traditional high street shopping is inevitable, meaning ministers should focus less on slowing that decline than on supporting new and more beneficial uses for town-centre sites.

The coronavirus crisis will accelerate pre-existing trends including a shift away from shopping in urban centres, says the think tank. Furthermore, as more and more workers spend at least some of their working week working at home, footfall in town centres will continue to decline and more retailers will likely collapse.

In the A New Life for the High Street report, the SMF say that a major programme of converting retail units for residential use could allow the creation of 800,000 new homes - many of which should be built by local councils and other public bodies in a major expansion of social housing. It also suggests that central government should write off tens of billions of pounds of local councils’ debt to support that programme.

To save urban centres, the SMF suggests: introducing a nationwide program of repurposing city and town centres; writing off of the £80 billion in local government debt sitting on the Public Works Loan Board’s loan book, to stimulate new investment in community assets in town and city centres; and designate areas at risk of urban decline due to loss of retail and office space as Economic Growth Areas (EGAs).

Scott Corfe, SMF Research Director, said: “Politicians pledging to save the high street are promising voters the impossible. Instead of claiming they can turn back the clock, leaders should aim to make inevitable change work better for urban centres and populations. Trying to prop up high street retailers facing long-term decline is not an act of kindness to workers or towns. It just postpones the inevitable and wastes opportunities to develop new policies to help workers and towns embrace the future.

“Nothing can stop the demise of traditional high street shopping so it would be better for politicians to support the next chapter in the story of the high street, with hundreds of thousands of new homes that bring new life to our urban centres.”