The owner of Timpson has branded business rates as the “real problem” that is preventing the regeneration of local high streets.
Sir John Timpson said the “unrealistic” tax system paired with an abundance of retail-only units were barriers to the development and investment of local towns across the UK.
Speaking in front of the House of Lords built environment committee, which launched a review into local high streets on Friday, he said: “When I set out in business, there was a very clear rule that the rates tended to be a third of the rent and that went on for years.
“Now we’ve got instances where the rates are considerably more than the rent,” he said, adding that the increase in rates has “nothing to do with the actual premises but to do with the level of inflation”.
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“Either the government doesn’t want to change business rates, to be fair and have a level playing field between online and physical shopping, or it doesn’t know how to do it,” said Timpson.
He said the “unrealistic” business rates meant “physical retailers are at a big disadvantage compared with online retailers”.
The business owner, who penned a high street report for the government back in 2018, also blamed an abundance of properties classified as retail-use only as a barrier to other businesses setting up the shop on the high street.
“The reason why there’s lots of empty shops isn’t necessarily because trade is bad, its because there’s frankly too many retail premises,” said Timpson.
“You’ve got enough shops to cater for all the shopping that happened before out-of-town shopping, before the online shopping.”
“It’s pretty obvious that you don’t need as many retail premises in a town now as you did years ago before there were retail parks and supermarkets,” he said.
Timpson said those retail premises “need to be changed in premises for something else, which actually will liven up” local towns.
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