Lush boss Mark Constantine has blamed the government for the state of the high street as its cut on council finances has pushed some local authorities to the state of bankruptcy.
The chief executive said a rethink was needed to prevent further decline after thousands of stores in the UK had closed in recent years.
“The high streets in Britain are deserted,” he told The Times.
“If the government wants us to become a nation of retailers and shopkeepers again, then it has to do something about it.”
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Constantine said the councils’ reliance on business rates and car-parking fees to raise cash had prevented them from being able to invest into its local town centres.
“Someone has to have the balls to sort out councils — which are all going bust and haven’t got a penny to spare — so that they’re not so reliant on car parking and business rates.
“Their revenue from that is dropping all the time and it’s not working. We have silent high streets.”
The chief executive called on the government for high streets and town centres to be made “more vibrant” to encourage “big tech” companies to open shops.
“You do have a lot of the innovative tech retailers looking around to move into bricks and mortar. Something has to be done to make that appealing.”
He joins John Lewis Partnership chair Sharon White in calling for more to be done to support the regeneration of the high street.
White said in September that supporting the high street needed to be a “cross-party” effort between political groupings as she called for a royal commission review.
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