What will the High Street look like in 5 years time?

hertfordseasider

hertfordseasider

Well-known member
So many of the once big high street and shopping centre names are going out of business, some names that have been around for longer than i have been alive and the trend is only going to continue.

I can't see out of town shopping centres like the Trafford Centre, Lakeside to name but 2 surviving, they will become mausoleums to the retail gods. But what of the High Street? There are going to be so many empty properties who will take them on? What will happen to the other shops interspersed with them? Will we see more and more pound shops, pawn brokers, charity shops?

This is a really serious situation and we have to hope that our towns and cities won't become ghost towns full of the above and eateries and coffee shops.

There has to be an opportunity for small businesses to be allowed to come back to the High Street, like we used to have prior to the big boys taking over. Butchers, Bakers, Greengrocers, Fishmongers, Deli's, independent clothes shops, artisan outlets with quality products you can't buy online from local craftsmen and artists. Is it possible to turn ghost towns into an area that is a treat to visit? Somewhere for the local people to go and shop and socialise.

I have no idea if this is possible, what are your thoughts about what you see happening?
 
Great OP. Even the bookies are running out of town. It’s going to take some imagination to solve the problems IMO, and unfortunately I can’t see the local authorities having the finance and the drive to sort it out on their own.
We need a big and rapid bounce back in the economy and probably a lot of big units splitting into smaller retail outlets and probably also housing.
 
glasshalffull said:
Great OP. Even the bookies are running out of town. It’s going to take some imagination to solve the problems IMO, and unfortunately I can’t see the local authorities having the finance and the drive to sort it out on their own.
We need a big and rapid bounce back in the economy and probably a lot of big units splitting into smaller retail outlets and probably also housing.
Click to expand...
It"s coming like a ghost town. When Bezos is coining it and our townspeople have no jobs....that's your ghost town. I listened to a radio 4 programme about the High Street and one of the big bookies was on it saying, "you take us out and we won't be replaced by an artisan baker, it'll be a charity shop. Sad, but true.
 
Definately going to be massive changes, not only in retail on the high street but also in office work. Looks like more online purchases, people working from home, etc. There’s going to be an enormous amount of empty office space left vacant, which could be turned into residential purposes for the poor, underprivileged for instance. Vacant High Street premises also can be turned back into housing interspersed with maybe social activities for the locals, maybe craft activities, smaller local food outlets,etc. In the aftermath of every ‘disaster’ over the centuries positives eventually arise.
 
You'll be telling me Woolworths, Maplins and Rumbelows are going bust next. Seriously though the High Street is going the same way it was before the pandemic only much quicker. Just look at Church Street, the so called showpiece street of Blackpool's retail economy. It was already a mess before all of this started; just charity shops and cheap bargain outlets. The future of the High St is personal care (hairdressers, nail salons), dining (takeaways, restaurants) and a few artisan outlets. Everything else, such as fashion, cars, bookmakers, furniture and homeware will be online or in big warehouses. Town centres will be made up of places mainly to eat, drink and tart yourself up.
 
Last edited:
1966_and_all_that said:
It"s coming like a ghost town. When Bezos is coining it and our townspeople have no jobs....that's your ghost town. I listened to a radio 4 programme about the High Street and one of the big bookies was on it saying, "you take us out and we won't be replaced by an artisan baker, it'll be a charity shop. Sad, but true.
Click to expand...
That’s depressing but I’d rather have a charity shop than a bookies, but that’s not saying much.
 
Understanding there is a lot of bollox going on let’s not take it to seriously, think 3 points
Levi501 said:
Definately going to be massive changes, not only in retail on the high street but also in office work. Looks like more online purchases, people working from home, etc. There’s going to be an enormous amount of empty office space left vacant, which could be turned into residential purposes for the poor, underprivileged for instance. Vacant High Street premises also can be turned back into housing interspersed with maybe social activities for the locals, maybe craft activities, smaller local food outlets,etc. In the aftermath of every ‘disaster’ over the centuries positives eventually arise.
Click to expand...
Levi’s will cost even more😬
 
Since the advent of online shopping our big stores have been on the decline. I think it's a shame, possibly as I grew up with these large Department stores. But the younger generations just seem to buy much more online than us oldies. You can't turn back the clock, or keep pumping money into something that's becoming outdated. My main worries are the likes of Amazon & the other massive conglomerates completely taking over, I have no real answers, but it's accelerated since we've been locked down. I've said it before that we'll end up with showrooms with size selections or superimposed images similar to what some hairdressers use, then the order will be delivered. I'll continue my support of the small independent's where possible as long as they're reasonably competitive, if they survive the pandemic & try to avoid Amazon.
Signed
Ned Ludd 😞
 
Dodgy iv just bought a pair of Levi’s online from John Lewis £56 free delivery Bargain,sad to see shops shutting but if I can order a pair of jeans in 5 minutes from my sofa then the shops are really up against it .
 
Sooty59 said:
Since the advent of online shopping our big stores have been on the decline. I think it's a shame, possibly as I grew up with these large Department stores. But the younger generations just seem to buy much more online than us oldies. You can't turn back the clock, or keep pumping money into something that's becoming outdated. My main worries are the likes of Amazon & the other massive conglomerates completely taking over, I have no real answers, but it's accelerated since we've been locked down. I've said it before that we'll end up with showrooms with size selections or superimposed images similar to what some hairdressers use, then the order will be delivered. I'll continue my support of the small independent's where possible as long as they're reasonably competitive, if they survive the pandemic & try to avoid Amazon.
Signed
Ned Ludd 😞
Click to expand...
Plus theres the impact on the tax revenue, with the likes of Amazon paying less tax than us.
 
High rents and rates haven't helped the High street shops in their competition with on line shopping.
Perhaps the Landlords such as the C of E who own large swatches of land particularly in cathedral cities could lead the way in lowering rents.
In Canterbury the High street shops reported a sharp downturn in customers when traffic was banned and customers headed for the retail parks with free parking on the outskirts, the City now left mostly with eating establishments, ideal of course for the tourists when they return.
 
Our town centres have got to become places where people again live. For decades all the space above ground floor shops have been used, at best, for storage or solicitors’ offices but usually just as flyblown empty space.

If the High Street chains go, then there will be shop space and possible flats above. This is what the Council should offer grants for. It would be good if less well paid artists/crafts people were supported to find workshops/showrooms with good cheap accommodation above. And if they moved in then the other shops and services would follow to support a viable living community. For too long our town centres have been dead places after 6pm.
 
hertfordseasider said:
So many of the once big high street and shopping centre names are going out of business, some names that have been around for longer than i have been alive and the trend is only going to continue.

I can't see out of town shopping centres like the Trafford Centre, Lakeside to name but 2 surviving, they will become mausoleums to the retail gods. But what of the High Street? There are going to be so many empty properties who will take them on? What will happen to the other shops interspersed with them? Will we see more and more pound shops, pawn brokers, charity shops?

This is a really serious situation and we have to hope that our towns and cities won't become ghost towns full of the above and eateries and coffee shops.

There has to be an opportunity for small businesses to be allowed to come back to the High Street, like we used to have prior to the big boys taking over. Butchers, Bakers, Greengrocers, Fishmongers, Deli's, independent clothes shops, artisan outlets with quality products you can't buy online from local craftsmen and artists. Is it possible to turn ghost towns into an area that is a treat to visit? Somewhere for the local people to go and shop and socialise.

I have no idea if this is possible, what are your thoughts about what you see happening?
Click to expand...
I can see more town centre housing. What price Debenhams in Blackpool becoming flats? Which makes sense in terms of preserving green belt and pumping people and money into the tc's. Retail will carry on but on a smaller more specialist scale. Cafe culture will be more evident.

To some extent this is a huge opportunity to revamp tc's for many places and make them a more community type hub. In the right hands of course.
 
fcblackpool said:
I can see more town centre housing. What price Debenhams in Blackpool becoming flats? Which makes sense in terms of preserving green belt and pumping people and money into the tc's. Retail will carry on but on a smaller more specialist scale. Cafe culture will be more evident.

To some extent this is a huge opportunity to revamp tc's for many places and make them a more community type hub. In the right hands of course.
Click to expand...
But do people want to live in town centres? Would you want to bring up small children overlooking Bank Hey St in the middle of summer as the pubs shut? I admire the intent but the reality especially in places like Blackpool, is different.
 
cruzzer said:
Yet Blackpool council continues to “invest” in the Hounds Hill.
Click to expand...
Fools and our money AGAIN.

Blackpool council bragging at the time that they got the Hounds Hill on the cheap - I wonder why?

And I wonder how it ever got approval considering the way the high street was heading.

Yet another shocking decision by our inept clownsil.
 
Wizaard said:
But do people want to live in town centres? Would you want to bring up small children overlooking Bank Hey St in the middle of summer as the pubs shut? I admire the intent but the reality especially in places like Blackpool, is different.
Click to expand...

Brighton has done a great job in converting B&Bs and retail units to family residential houses. The trouble is if you attempted that in Blackpool, you wouldn't attract families. They would just end up as HMOs full of deadbeats.
 
Wizaard said:
But do people want to live in town centres? Would you want to bring up small children overlooking Bank Hey St in the middle of summer as the pubs shut? I admire the intent but the reality especially in places like Blackpool, is different.
Click to expand...
There's going to be an awful lot of vacant property that won't have commercial value. It makes sense to incorporate the decline of retail with town centre regeneration. I'm sure it can be done in a socially aware way taking account of green and wellbeing.

The problem with big retail going is that it stops people visiting the tc and the knock on of that is the decline of smaller retail, leading ultimately a wasteland with very little there bar some pubs. Even the vape shops will have packed it in.
 
Last edited:
Add a tax if you buy anything online then heavily tax delivery companies for a start so shops are able to compete.
It's ridiculous you can get parcels(if not free) delivered for less than it costs for a few hours parking in a town centre.
 
I'd also stop companies being able to deliver in your area every day people are buying items for a couple of quid and waiting for them at home once a week for parcels.
 
fcblackpool said:
There's going to be an awful lot of vacant property that won't have commercial value. It makes sense to incorporate the decline of retail with town centre regeneration. I'm sure it can be done in a socially aware way taking account of green and wellbeing.

The problem with big retail going is that it stops people visiting the tc and the knock on off that is the decline of smaller retail, leading ultimately a wasteland with very little there bar some pubs. Even the vape shops will have packed it in.
Click to expand...

This is the point. You need a mix of outlets to make a town centre desirable for a full day economy that suits all demographics. Pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants need more around them to make them attractive to customers. I don't want to walk in and out of a ghost town for a night out.
 
hertfordseasider said:
So many of the once big high street and shopping centre names are going out of business, some names that have been around for longer than i have been alive and the trend is only going to continue.

I can't see out of town shopping centres like the Trafford Centre, Lakeside to name but 2 surviving, they will become mausoleums to the retail gods. But what of the High Street? There are going to be so many empty properties who will take them on? What will happen to the other shops interspersed with them? Will we see more and more pound shops, pawn brokers, charity shops?

This is a really serious situation and we have to hope that our towns and cities won't become ghost towns full of the above and eateries and coffee shops.

There has to be an opportunity for small businesses to be allowed to come back to the High Street, like we used to have prior to the big boys taking over. Butchers, Bakers, Greengrocers, Fishmongers, Deli's, independent clothes shops, artisan outlets with quality products you can't buy online from local craftsmen and artists. Is it possible to turn ghost towns into an area that is a treat to visit? Somewhere for the local people to go and shop and socialise.

I have no idea if this is possible, what are your thoughts about what you see happening?
Click to expand...
My business partner and I have been writing and talking about this for quite a long time, going back to the financial crisis of 2007/8 where retailers were basically forced into religning their networks and theoretically devaluing commercial property. The covid crisis has exasperated the problem exponentially.

My business partner and I dont agree on any kind of resolution, he believes that shopping centres and the high street become exclusively experiential, i dont get this in that, firstly there is just too much real estate, and secondly the big digital retailers are quite capable of offering physical places to shop, collect purchases recieve services or have experiences in the exact same way they deliver online, using the same cost and competition models - lowest cost supply, squeeze the labour market, push out the competition.

If you are Bezos or any of the other digital behemoths it makes absolute sense to start buying up commercial real estate in order to further control their individual market shares.

The issue is that you end up with monopolised markets or very close to it and this has been happening in other sectors for three decades or so. banking, telecoms, energy etc. There might be a level of price competition but eventually the market forces, force greater and greater co-operation between companies or direct mergers. When that happens you have no incentive to offer value, reasonable service or even quality of offer think about why banking and energy is still so expensive. You literally have whatever choices the company wants to offer, but also as a supplier it becomes very difficult to enter the market unless you agree to the terms and conditions of the major player.

Earlier i said that theoretically commercial property values should be falling becaue there is a massive oversupply, but they are not in real terms because their values are being kept artificially high through cheap credit, and the fact that banks are much more likely to lend against assets rather than operations - there is more likelihood of finding investment or credit facilities in the property you have or are trying to acquire than the business you are trying to build. this has a reciprocal effect on domestic property as well.

The argument I have with my business partner is that we need to prepare for a post consumer economy. Consumption itself will have to drop, and the idea of over production in the pursuit of increased market share will have to be abandoned but that also means a complete realignment of asset values.

I started writing an article for a commercial centre conference a while ago, where the basic idea was that a large majority of commercial space may have to come into public ownership and / or significant change of use will have to occur, which would require a major legislative change in town planning. The value of the assets will diminish significantly below the borrowing on those assets, they effectively become junk assets.

Shopping centres are almost ideally constructed for lots of uses, schools / colleges / universities, hospitals, public service delivery and so on. But commercially that makes no sense, but if they come into public ownership it does.
 
That Costero knows his stuff, doesn't he ? 👏

If it has been mentioned, forgive me, but as a 60+ the other thing that worries me is the amount of commercial property owned by Pension companies. Every time someone gets a CVA or threatens admin, rents are their first port of call. Covid rent holidays have also taken their toll this year.

Maybe, just maybe, when all this property does come available, the planners will take the opportunity to redevelop properly, and replace the damp skanky low cost unmaintained property into which we not only drop the ne'er do wells, but those who hit a crisis in their lives through no fault of their own. The conversion cost of large blocks is a fraction of the cost of new builds, and, by definition, does not require further use of Greenfield sites. Conversion into energy efficient homes whilst flattening the appalling heat leakers has to be a bonus. It is a huge threat, but also a big opportunity.
 
Tangerinemoss said:
That Costero knows his stuff, doesn't he ? 👏

If it has been mentioned, forgive me, but as a 60+ the other thing that worries me is the amount of commercial property owned by Pension companies. Every time someone gets a CVA or threatens admin, rents are their first port of call. Covid rent holidays have also taken their toll this year.

Maybe, just maybe, when all this property does come available, the planners will take the opportunity to redevelop properly, and replace the damp skanky low cost unmaintained property into which we not only drop the ne'er do wells, but those who hit a crisis in their lives through no fault of their own. The conversion cost of large blocks is a fraction of the cost of new builds, and, by definition, does not require further use of Greenfield sites. Conversion into energy efficient homes whilst flattening the appalling heat leakers has to be a bonus. It is a huge threat, but also a big opportunity.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately my views are considered outlandish.

Im not sure it will actually become available, not in the short to medium term anyway. Putting my very cynical head on, what we might see is the really really big funds buying up property assets very cheaply with largely borrowed money, with a view to just sitting on them for 5 to ten years, supported then by public bailouts of the banking systemas the loans become unservicable which basically makes them free assets, in the hope that a change in either the markets or society in general makes those assets valuable again.

The effect to consumers is we will see a lot more dead highstreets or high streets populated by charity shops with an ever diminishing area of quality outlets in most towns. Topshop going into recievership this week should be a real eye-opener for those with responsibility for managing the economy, but my guess is it wont be.

The idea that there is a property or housing shortage in the UK is ludicrous, what the UK has is a massive distribution problem, like almost every other developed country.

There is a massive economic boost in the wings which would be in converting property to new use, and greening buildings, but in most respects it isnt profitable to sectors of society that own, finance or manage those processes.
 
Costero Poderoso said:
The idea that there is a property or housing shortage in the UK is ludicrous, what the UK has is a massive distribution problem, like almost every other developed country.
Click to expand...
Numbers wise, perhaps, but quality wise, there is a huge shortage of decent healthy vaguely efficient housing, too many people are in substandard inefficient rubbish. Private and public sector.

Anyway, that is not to distract from what you have posted, kicking the problem down the road with cheap credit sounds about right. My company has been trying to get a retail unit in Aberdeen for several years. Despite demand having fallen off a cliff due to oil staffing reductions, empty units and a shrinking economy, the landlords still expect rents at boom levels. I guess their balance sheets will not tolerate writing down values.
 
Costero Poderoso said:
Unfortunately my views are considered outlandish.

Im not sure it will actually become available, not in the short to medium term anyway. Putting my very cynical head on, what we might see is the really really big funds buying up property assets very cheaply with largely borrowed money, with a view to just sitting on them for 5 to ten years, supported then by public bailouts of the banking systemas the loans become unservicable which basically makes them free assets, in the hope that a change in either the markets or society in general makes those assets valuable again.

The effect to consumers is we will see a lot more dead highstreets or high streets populated by charity shops with an ever diminishing area of quality outlets in most towns. Topshop going into recievership this week should be a real eye-opener for those with responsibility for managing the economy, but my guess is it wont be.

The idea that there is a property or housing shortage in the UK is ludicrous, what the UK has is a massive distribution problem, like almost every other developed country.

There is a massive economic boost in the wings which would be in converting property to new use, and greening buildings, but in most respects it isnt profitable to sectors of society that own, finance or manage those processes.
Click to expand...

I can't help but think you're over thinking it a bit.
 
Tangerinemoss said:
Numbers wise, perhaps, but quality wise, there is a huge shortage of decent healthy vaguely efficient housing, too many people are in substandard inefficient rubbish. Private and public sector.

Anyway, that is not to distract from what you have posted, kicking the problem down the road with cheap credit sounds about right. My company has been trying to get a retail unit in Aberdeen for several years. Despite demand having fallen off a cliff due to oil staffing reductions, empty units and a shrinking economy, the landlords still expect rents at boom levels. I guess their balance sheets will not tolerate writing down values.
Click to expand...
Tend to agree with your first statement about quality, but the whole property market, even domestic and social housing, because it is driven by the profit motive will probably remain for many - low quality.

Just to answer Herts as well, I'm really not overthinking it, the whole economy, including retail needs a complete re-set. I've just finished a book on the subject where this issue takes up a fairly sizable chunk of the content, when you do a deep dive into this there are some really serious problems, Tmoss picks up on one that if property markets drop in value there is a serious consequence to pension funds, but if rents and asset prices do not drop retailers and service providers will not be able to continue in bricks and mortar spaces which means big retailers including those blue chip retailers which will be held in pension funds will be under massive threat.

Just to expand: if interest rates go up in relation to real market forces then the debt that the majority of big companies have is unsustainable, so interest rates need to be kept down (artificially). If interest rates stay low then investors have no reason to save, assets remain the primary investment; that rush for assets creates false value in the assets leading to asset value increases. Those asset values (property being one) create inflationary pressures on productive capacity (retail operators in this case) which leads to a wage squeeze, all the way down the operator supply chain. That wage squeeze means people consume less or consume low cost (internet providers). The low cost scenario favours much bigger corporations who have scale of efficiency and global supply chains, and hold the threat of redundancy / lower wages over employees when they have further competition pressures. Those competition pressures also force further lending into the supply chain but also fixed costs need to be reduced hence property owners are at the mercy of major retailers who want to reduce rents / estate costs. Those rent reductions affect Pensions and so on.

There is a cycle that ordinary even moderately wealthy people always end up paying for. Wherever you break the cycle in order to fix the problem, the financial burden falls on the section of the populations that works to survive even if they have moderately substantial assets.
 
poolseasider said:
Add a tax if you buy anything online then heavily tax delivery companies for a start so shops are able to compete.
It's ridiculous you can get parcels(if not free) delivered for less than it costs for a few hours parking in a town centre.
Click to expand...
Don't be ridiculous, shopping trends have changed and shoppers want instant access 24/7 to buy whatever they want, cheaper than on the streets and delivered free. That's progress. The high Street is dead and keeping it on life support is not the answer. Blackpool Town centre has an advantage that most towns don't - over a million visitors who want to spend money. Therefore the answer is reuse the shops in a way that taps into that. Bars, restaurants, niche shops and entertainment venues. You cant stop progress
 
Bob Hatton said:
Don't be ridiculous, shopping trends have changed and shoppers want instant access 24/7 to buy whatever they want, cheaper than on the streets and delivered free. That's progress. The high Street is dead and keeping it on life support is not the answer. Blackpool Town centre has an advantage that most towns don't - over a million visitors who want to spend money. Therefore the answer is reuse the shops in a way that taps into that. Bars, restaurants, niche shops and entertainment venues. You cant stop progress
Click to expand...
What is ridiculous that Amazon and the like give us fuck all back in tax polute the environment with their vans down your street every day and undercut everyone else that's not progress.
 
Don't give a shit, most high street businesses have had the gravy for years and put nothing back. Who these days wants to troll around town paying top prices when I can buy what I want at the press of a mouse? ? Many of these businesses missed the internet revolution and now complain at online companies like Amazon ect. when they had years to do the same. The high steet should be restaurants, pubs and other entertainment venues leave the shopping for the interweb.
 
poolseasider said:
What is ridiculous that Amazon and the like give us fuck all back in tax polute the environment with their vans down your street every day and undercut everyone else that's not progress.
Click to expand...
So polute the atmosphere more by having everyone drive to town, queue for parking and leave the engines idling in congestion???? .Amazon paid £300 million in tax last year and employs nearly 30,000 people. People want the products they want at the cheapest possible price. Other companies will compete to undercut Amazon - that is progress
 
Bob Hatton said:
Other companies will compete to undercut Amazon - that is progress
Click to expand...
Not if they pay UK tax, they won't.

Not sure how you shop fashion online, guess you buy loads and return it. Maybe if there is not the convenience of returning it to high street stores, it will change. Many of us no longer have a local PO to return stuff.
 
Tangerinemoss said:
Not if they pay UK tax, they won't.

Not sure how you shop fashion online, guess you buy loads and return it. Maybe if there is not the convenience of returning it to high street stores, it will change. Many of us no longer have a local PO to return stuff.
Click to expand...
Of course they will, Amazon are very often not the cheapest. As you say just buy several sizes and return what you don't need. You don't need post offices, loads of return services such as Hermes and yodel use local shops such as costcutter. Online sales offer the best value to consumers and they have voted with their feet. Town centre shopping is not what the vast majority want, what will be left will be niche independent shops offering great personalised service. The chain stores will continue to decline before and eventual and inevitable closure
 
Bob Hatton said:
So polute the atmosphere more by having everyone drive to town, queue for parking and leave the engines idling in congestion???? .Amazon paid £300 million in tax last year and employs nearly 30,000 people. People want the products they want at the cheapest possible price. Other companies will compete to undercut Amazon - that is progress
Click to expand...
300 million in tax big deal when the company made 14 billion last year.
 
tangerinenotorange said:
Brighton has done a great job in converting B&Bs and retail units to family residential houses. The trouble is if you attempted that in Blackpool, you wouldn't attract families. They would just end up as HMOs full of deadbeats.
Click to expand...

Brighton would be a good role model. It is a buzzing place and has transformed the area as a modern but quirky experience, aimed at a completely different market to somewhere like Blackpool. Great restaurants, unusual shops, loads of live music and a place people want to live. Maybe it is time to have a complete makeover, is it time for the cheap tack and kiss me quick hats to disappear or re-invigorate that old Blackpool charm that has been lost by hen and stage do's, make it more vintage rather than trying to be hi-tech as that comes across more like hi-tack! It needs something (I am just using Blackpool as an example) and to do something like that would be a massive and expensive task.
 
tangerinenotorange said:
Brighton has done a great job in converting B&Bs and retail units to family residential houses. The trouble is if you attempted that in Blackpool, you wouldn't attract families. They would just end up as HMOs full of deadbeats.
Click to expand...
Why?

If Brighton can do it why can't Blackpool, Brighton put certain standards and regulations in place, Blackool would have to do the same.

Would probably have to flatten a few buildings and maybe think about adding some green areas and maybe even the odd tree or two! It could be done.
If nothing is done then the town centre will be incredibly grim in 10 years time.
 
Costero Poderoso said:
My business partner and I have been writing and talking about this for quite a long time, going back to the financial crisis of 2007/8 where retailers were basically forced into religning their networks and theoretically devaluing commercial property. The covid crisis has exasperated the problem exponentially.

My business partner and I dont agree on any kind of resolution, he believes that shopping centres and the high street become exclusively experiential, i dont get this in that, firstly there is just too much real estate, and secondly the big digital retailers are quite capable of offering physical places to shop, collect purchases recieve services or have experiences in the exact same way they deliver online, using the same cost and competition models - lowest cost supply, squeeze the labour market, push out the competition.

If you are Bezos or any of the other digital behemoths it makes absolute sense to start buying up commercial real estate in order to further control their individual market shares.

The issue is that you end up with monopolised markets or very close to it and this has been happening in other sectors for three decades or so. banking, telecoms, energy etc. There might be a level of price competition but eventually the market forces, force greater and greater co-operation between companies or direct mergers. When that happens you have no incentive to offer value, reasonable service or even quality of offer think about why banking and energy is still so expensive. You literally have whatever choices the company wants to offer, but also as a supplier it becomes very difficult to enter the market unless you agree to the terms and conditions of the major player.

Earlier i said that theoretically commercial property values should be falling becaue there is a massive oversupply, but they are not in real terms because their values are being kept artificially high through cheap credit, and the fact that banks are much more likely to lend against assets rather than operations - there is more likelihood of finding investment or credit facilities in the property you have or are trying to acquire than the business you are trying to build. this has a reciprocal effect on domestic property as well.

The argument I have with my business partner is that we need to prepare for a post consumer economy. Consumption itself will have to drop, and the idea of over production in the pursuit of increased market share will have to be abandoned but that also means a complete realignment of asset values.

I started writing an article for a commercial centre conference a while ago, where the basic idea was that a large majority of commercial space may have to come into public ownership and / or significant change of use will have to occur, which would require a major legislative change in town planning. The value of the assets will diminish significantly below the borrowing on those assets, they effectively become junk assets.

Shopping centres are almost ideally constructed for lots of uses, schools / colleges / universities, hospitals, public service delivery and so on. But commercially that makes no sense, but if they come into public ownership it does.
Click to expand...
Nationalisation is seen as anathema these days yet it would make sense for local authorities to buy up these defunct shopping centres for other community use. It just needs the visionary to do it. Blackpool Council has a history of not making the right decisions for the future of the town.
 
Wizaard said:
Nationalisation is seen as anathema these days yet it would make sense for local authorities to buy up these defunct shopping centres for other community use. It just needs the visionary to do it. Blackpool Council has a history of not making the right decisions for the future of the town.
Click to expand...

Visionary is right, you need more than one and you need the support of the local people. It is difficult but it can be done. We either let our towns and cities become, as Lytham said, a scene from Fallout 3 with tumbleweed and broken down businesses everywhere and the undesirables taking over, or you turn this desperate situation on its head and come out with a town you are proud of and a hub for the community and for those who visit too.
 
Last edited:
Wizaard said:
Nationalisation is seen as anathema these days yet it would make sense for local authorities to buy up these defunct shopping centres for other community use. It just needs the visionary to do it. Blackpool Council has a history of not making the right decisions for the future of the town.
Click to expand...
I agree with you about the community use but Nationalism doesn't work, however there are alternatives - community ownership is one, conceptually its complex, you'll have to read the book :). Its not just blackpool that have made bad decsions although Blackpool authorities have really screwed the town over the last 5 decades, the whole way that decsions are made or just arrived at, is fundamentally wrong, the factors that considered and ignored in decsions about everything need to be fundamentally re-set.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top