High streets could become housing hubs amid online shift, think tank says

In a report that aims to influence a review of planning laws, the Social Market Foundation said the move could create at least 800,000 new homes. 

The SMF insisted that, amid the rapid rise in ecommerce, the decline of high streets across the UK would not be reversed by policies that attempt to “turn the clock back”. 

The move to digital shopping channels has accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic, while the increase in remote working has sparked further declines in town and city centres, even since lockdown measures have been eased. 

Major retailers including John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Boots and Halfords have revealed plans to shut stores and reduce headcounts as they face into the challenges posed by the health emergency.  

In its A New Life for the High Street report, the SMF said the government should seek “new and more beneficial uses for town-centre sites” by tearing down empty shops or turning them into housing.

Under what it called a “conservative assumption”, 5% of commercial property could be redeveloped, creating 800,000 new homes.

SMF research director Scott Corfe told The Guardian: “Politicians pledging to save the high street are promising voters the impossible. Instead of claiming they can turn back the clock, leaders should aim to make inevitable change work better for urban centres and populations.

“Trying to prop up high street retailers facing long-term decline is not an act of kindness to workers or towns. It just postpones the inevitable and wastes opportunities to develop new policies to help workers and towns embrace the future.

“Nothing can stop the demise of traditional high street shopping so it would be better for politicians to support the next chapter in the story of the high street, with hundreds of thousands of new homes that bring new life to our urban centres.”