Boots boss Alex Gourlay joins team to save high streets
BRITAIN'S high streets must adapt to meet the changing needs of today's consumers if they are to prosper, says Local Growth Minister Mark Prisk.
Speaking to the 27 Portas Pilots in Loughborough, the minister says the high street cannot live in the past, but must adapt to meet radical changes in consumer behaviour seen over the past few years.
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Radical moves: Local Growth Minister Mark Prisk.
He announced a new national Future High Streets Forum, bringing together leaders from retail, property and business to better understand the competition town centres face and to drive new ideas and policies, building on the work of the Portas Review of the High Street.
It will be co-chaired by Mr Prisk and Alex Gourlay, chief executive of Alliance Boots Health & Beauty.
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It will advise the country's 27 Portas Pilots and 330 Town Team Partners on how to adapt to a new era of online shopping and the changing way in which consumers shop.
The Future High Streets Forum will advise the Government on the challenges facing high streets and help develop practical policies to enable town centres to adapt and change. It will look at issues including:
Promoting parking solutions and good practice to help high streets attract more visitors.
Making it easier for redundant empty spaces to be used as pop-up shops to bring new business on to the high street.
Allowing commercial landlords to turn part of their building into a residential property to bring more people into town centres.
Reinforcing the Town Centre First planning rules.
Pop-up shops in the 330 Town Team Partner high streets.
Forum members John Lewis, British Retail Consortium, the
British Property Federation, the British Council of Shopping Centres, the Association of Town & City Management and the Association of Convenience Stores.
Mr Gourlay said: "Boots UK strongly supports the pursuit of creating healthy and prosperous high streets which can be an essential, if not the most critical, ingredient in supporting the regeneration of local communities."
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