For many years I have advocated having some form of reform about how most of our highstreets are owned and (re)developed.
I have lived in Ashington, a former, coal mining town in Northumberland, for over 30 years owning an independent opticians practice in the town centre.
I have been a District and Town Cllr and member of the “Town Team” and “Town Board”. Politically I am a LibDem in a traditionally Labour Town.
There are some promising developments. The Northumberland. Line passenger rail service to Newcastle has reopened.
The Northumberland College is getting a new campus, 500m from town centre and a cinema, restaurant complex is, eventually, getting built, on the site of “the Ashington hole”
There are too many Turkish barbers, vape shops, betting shops and take away food outlets. Like so many towns.
Part of the problem is the 100 or so properties are owned by different people/companies, so it is hard to look at the street in totality and redevelop sensibly, flats above shops, solar power on whole long roofs, etc.
My solution is to form something like “The Ashington Town Centre Company” with all the current owners being shareholders
(proportionate to value of properties they currently own).
This should allow the. whole street to be considered together.
I would also envisage local people given the opportunity to invest by purchasing “bonds” paying a commercial rate of interest. There are people in the town with tens of thousands of pounds and I hope it would appeal to them to see their money invested in their community as well as paying interest.
As you say there needs to be radical changes. So here is my suggestion.
My council's answer to High St decline is to "attract people" by providing free parking at cost of 1M per year in lost revenue and hiking my council tax higher. It's essentially a subsidy from those who don't have cars (younger and poorer renters) to those who do (richer homeowners). And it hasn't worked. All it did is raise car traffic with more Chelsea tractors in narrow streets and pollution.
As correctly pointed out, we don't buy stuff from High St much, it's all about service sector - salons, restaurants, dentists, coffee shops, etc. - and these need density to be viable.
So what does the local pensioners (mostly rich homeowners) do? Object to any housing being built at or near high street, and write celebratory notes in the quarterly newsletter that the council spared them of increased density in the latest plan.
I read this with a strong sense of recognition. I'm part of FixUxbridgeRoad, a residents' group in Shepherd's Bush, and almost everything in the piece – the retail monoculture, the doom loop of low-quality shops, weak licensing enforcement, the gap between beautification and structural change – is what we have been living with and campaigning on.
In April 2025 we launched a petition, "Fix Uxbridge Road, No More Neglect, No More Crime", asking Hammersmith & Fulham Council for a three, six and 12-month plan with measurable goals for the stretch of Uxbridge Road between numbers 100 and 500. It closed with 2,917 signatures – close to 3,000 local residents – which took it to Cabinet in September 2025. Our own survey found 79% of residents dissatisfied with the shops and businesses on the road, which is dominated by chicken shops, betting shops and 2-in-1 stores rather than the mix of experiences, retail and services the authors call for.
What I think is missing from the wider debate, and what this piece gets closest to, is the question of which model actually works once a community has made its case. We have now been through the petition, the Cabinet hearing and a year of follow-up, and we have a clear view of where the existing tools fall short – on enforcement, on fragmented ownership (Andrew's point above about 100 different owners rings very true), and on the limits of grant-funded placemaking – and what a High Street Investment Zone or property holding vehicle would need to do differently to make a difference on a street like ours.
For many years I have advocated having some form of reform about how most of our highstreets are owned and (re)developed.
I have lived in Ashington, a former, coal mining town in Northumberland, for over 30 years owning an independent opticians practice in the town centre.
I have been a District and Town Cllr and member of the “Town Team” and “Town Board”. Politically I am a LibDem in a traditionally Labour Town.
There are some promising developments. The Northumberland. Line passenger rail service to Newcastle has reopened.
The Northumberland College is getting a new campus, 500m from town centre and a cinema, restaurant complex is, eventually, getting built, on the site of “the Ashington hole”
There are too many Turkish barbers, vape shops, betting shops and take away food outlets. Like so many towns.
Part of the problem is the 100 or so properties are owned by different people/companies, so it is hard to look at the street in totality and redevelop sensibly, flats above shops, solar power on whole long roofs, etc.
My solution is to form something like “The Ashington Town Centre Company” with all the current owners being shareholders
(proportionate to value of properties they currently own).
This should allow the. whole street to be considered together.
I would also envisage local people given the opportunity to invest by purchasing “bonds” paying a commercial rate of interest. There are people in the town with tens of thousands of pounds and I hope it would appeal to them to see their money invested in their community as well as paying interest.
As you say there needs to be radical changes. So here is my suggestion.
Happy to discus, debate and refine theses ideas.
My council's answer to High St decline is to "attract people" by providing free parking at cost of 1M per year in lost revenue and hiking my council tax higher. It's essentially a subsidy from those who don't have cars (younger and poorer renters) to those who do (richer homeowners). And it hasn't worked. All it did is raise car traffic with more Chelsea tractors in narrow streets and pollution.
As correctly pointed out, we don't buy stuff from High St much, it's all about service sector - salons, restaurants, dentists, coffee shops, etc. - and these need density to be viable.
So what does the local pensioners (mostly rich homeowners) do? Object to any housing being built at or near high street, and write celebratory notes in the quarterly newsletter that the council spared them of increased density in the latest plan.
I read this with a strong sense of recognition. I'm part of FixUxbridgeRoad, a residents' group in Shepherd's Bush, and almost everything in the piece – the retail monoculture, the doom loop of low-quality shops, weak licensing enforcement, the gap between beautification and structural change – is what we have been living with and campaigning on.
In April 2025 we launched a petition, "Fix Uxbridge Road, No More Neglect, No More Crime", asking Hammersmith & Fulham Council for a three, six and 12-month plan with measurable goals for the stretch of Uxbridge Road between numbers 100 and 500. It closed with 2,917 signatures – close to 3,000 local residents – which took it to Cabinet in September 2025. Our own survey found 79% of residents dissatisfied with the shops and businesses on the road, which is dominated by chicken shops, betting shops and 2-in-1 stores rather than the mix of experiences, retail and services the authors call for.
What I think is missing from the wider debate, and what this piece gets closest to, is the question of which model actually works once a community has made its case. We have now been through the petition, the Cabinet hearing and a year of follow-up, and we have a clear view of where the existing tools fall short – on enforcement, on fragmented ownership (Andrew's point above about 100 different owners rings very true), and on the limits of grant-funded placemaking – and what a High Street Investment Zone or property holding vehicle would need to do differently to make a difference on a street like ours.
https://www.instagram.com/fixuxbridgeroadw12
https://democracy.lbhf.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=176&RPID=0&HPID=