"The centre of our communities don't need to die"

If we don’t do something about our high streets, town centres and people working from home, we will lose a way of life and the social fabric of our places, says Roger Wade, CEO, Boxpark in his interview on stage at the Festival of Place 2021, now available via podcast.

Wade outlines the scale of the existential threat facing high-street and town centre retail, with the government moratorium on commercial tenant evictions set to end on 25 March, 2022. 

"Effectively that means that no landlord can kick any tenant out because of non-payment of rent. The government did absolutely zero to help any tenants when it came to rent. It did something on the salary side, but nothing on rent.

"All these tenants have got accrued rent and they won’t be able to pay it. Come the end of March you are going to see a fivefold, tenfold closure of retail outlets."

"If you don’t think that this is an existential event... One of the best performing stores in the world has recently closed... Top Shop on Oxford Circus," says Wade, who also points out that GAP is closing all retail shops in the UK in favour of online.

Wade makes a passionate plea for government to level the playing field between online retail and shopfronts in terms of business rates and corporation tax, arguing that physical retail could compete on content with digital, if the tax burden was fair.

"The centres of our communities don’t need to die... but we need to create the right circumstances for hospitality, restauranteurs and shops."