Watch: High streets must kick “addiction to transactional retail”

High streets must kick their “addiction to transactional retail”, said Ibrahim Ibrahim, managing director of Portland Design, speaking with Lisa Pilkington, executive editor of Completely Retail News, at Completely Retail Marketplace on Tuesday (26th of September).

“How do we develop a future high street that really shifts from having a shopping rhythm – a rhythm of footfall based around shopping – to a community rhythm: A rhythm of footfall that is based around a whole range of different services and amenities?”

He was joined by Ruth Moorhouse, director at Ellandi, to discuss with Completely Retail News how struggling high streets can be revitalised.

“It’s about creating an ecosystem within a town centre that functions for the community that it’s within”, she said.

“It has to be relevant to that community. So retail, F&B, leisure are really important, but also, Ellandi has a really strong heritage in community shopping centres and so we’re finding […] reasons to bring people to high streets who wouldn’t normally use that town centre, so whether that’s to the library, to the council offices, to the doctors.

“But all of this costs money, and that is a common theme from last year, the year before, and the year before that, and continues. It’s finding the right investment to bring forward all these uses in our town centres.”

Other topics of the discussion included whether another high street review is needed, what the Government and local authorities can do to help struggling high streets, and whether we need more business improvement districts (BIDs).

Watch the full ‘Revitalising High Streets’ session above.