The High Street

Why are people so keen to revitalise our high streets?

Shops are a recent innovation and, in these days of on-line buying, is a business model that's doomed to a long, slow decline. Before permanent shops, people bought and sold things at the weekly market, or from a stall outside their houses.

Revitalising the high street is like trying to revitalise horse riding in the face of the motorcar, or encyclopedias in the face of Wikipedia (or a Triumph GT6 in the face of a Tesla....).

Even shops with high footfall suffer from them becoming nothing more than a shop window for people who then go home and try to find the same product at a lower price direct from the manufacturer or a small-scale wholesaler who doesn't have the high overheads of a shop. We say one thing and do another - a bit like ideology in politics.

Yes, there will always be a market for bricks and mortar shops in respect of some products, but they are few and far between. Totnes High Street is more like shopping districts should be - a collection (and indeed a collective) of independent retailers who provide unique products that can't be provided anywhere else. So many high streets are facsimiles of others and it's hard to know where you are. They're not individual; they're bland in the extreme.

I appreciate that most shops are unsuitable for conversion into housing, but many are and, if we have a shortage of houses, then turning them into housing would solve a pressing problem. On August 1st, 2021, the new permitted planning development rights (PDR) came into force. These new rules allow the conversion of any Class E building (shops) into a residential space (C3 'dwelling house') without the need for full planning permission if certain conditions are met.