Bira's CEO Andrew Goodacre welcomes new Government investment in the high street – but argues that for furniture and home retailers, the structural barriers to survival run deeper than any single funding announcement can fix …
The Government's announcement of £319m for high street revitalisation is welcome news, and I want to acknowledge that genuinely. The vision of town centres reimagined as mixed-use spaces – combining retail with homes, health services and community hubs – is one that makes sense. Done well, it could bring more people into town centres and give independent retailers the footfall they need to flourish.
For furniture and home retailers in particular, footfall is everything. These are businesses built on the browsing experience – on customers being able to sit in a chair, feel the quality of a fabric, see how a piece looks in three dimensions. That is something no website can replicate. When people are in town, they come into stores. When town centres empty out, these businesses feel it first and hardest.
So the prospect of high streets becoming more vibrant, more mixed-use and more community-focused is one our members should cautiously welcome.
But cautiously is the right word, because the structural problems facing independent retailers will not be solved by regeneration funding alone.
Business rates remain the most pressing issue. For a furniture retailer, the shop floor is everything – and shop floors are large. The rates burden on a mid-sized furniture or homewares store can be crippling, falling with no regard for whether that business is thriving or barely surviving. Until we see wholesale reform of the rates system, many of our members will continue to face an impossible calculation every month.
There is also the question of competition. The growth of low-value imports flooding through online marketplaces – often from overseas sellers who pay little or no duty – creates a distortion that British retailers simply cannot compete with on price alone.
Independent furniture and home stores offer something those channels cannot – expertise, service, provenance and the ability to see and touch before you buy. But they need a fair trading environment to make that proposition sustainable. A handling fee on low-value imports, with the revenue directed towards business rates reform, would be a meaningful step in the right direction.
I genuinely believe in the future of the independent high street. The desire to shop locally, to support businesses rooted in communities, has never been stronger. What our members need is for Government policy to match that public appetite – with reform that reduces the cost burden, levels the competitive playing field, and gives independent retailers a real chance to build on the investment now being made in their town centres.
The money is welcome. Now let us see the structural change to match it.
