Sainsbury’s calls for high street reform
SAINSBURY’S chief executive Justin King will this week urge the UK to be “brave enough” to shrink its ailing high streets and convert empty stores into houses or even classrooms.
King will call for a greater mix between “retail and other activities” to help make high streets “not just a poor second to out of town centres” when he gives a speech at the annual City Food Lecture this Wednesday.
His comments will come just two months after retail expert Mary Portas concluded in a government-commission review that town centres had reached a “crisis point” and were in danger of disappearing forever unless urgent action was taken.
King, the boss of the UK’s third largest supermarket, will say that while some high streets are in need of a “radical re-think”, rumours of the death of the high street “have been exaggerated”.
Responding to criticism that supermarkets have played a role in the high street’s demise, King will say: “I do not believe that the high street is doomed nor that it is all the fault of supermarkets. There is a risk anyway of looking back through rose-tinted spectacles to an era that never really existed.”
“Supermarkets have reflected society and changes in society. Many shoppers do not have the time to potter between the butcher, baker and grocer.”
King will also encourage high streets “to learn from large retailers” by, for example, encouraging local loyalty schemes. He will also call for town centres to be cleaned up and made more accessible through forms of public transport.
Andrew Cave, a spokesperson for the Federation of Small Businesses, said there was an argument for finding uses for empty stores, but warned this “should be a short-term solution rather than removing retail property from the high street in the long-term”.