The High Street still matters. A fair rates system can bring it back to life

You can feel it as much as you can see it when you walk down almost empty high streets, around local precincts or along small parades - empty shops, shuttered stores, quiet precincts and corners where there used to be life.

For decades, small shops have been at the heart of communities. They provide jobs, opportunities and, for many, a sense of belonging. Yet new research from Co-op shows how fragile things have become. Sixty thousand small shops and 150,000 jobs could disappear without urgent action on business rates relief.

A staggering 7 in 10 small business owners say reform is essential to survive. Almost 70 per cent of the public have no confidence that the Government will deliver it.

That should worry us all. When people stop believing promises will be kept, it weakens trust in politics and the idea that anyone in power is really listening.

Local shops are more than places to buy essentials. For many, especially older people, a visit to the local store might be their only conversation that day. They are small spaces that make a big difference: where connection happens and where people still know each other’s names.

Benedict Selvaratnam, who runs Freshfields Market in Croydon, told me recently: “The high street still matters. It’s where people meet, work and live. Without rates relief, we’ll see more closures, more risk-averse owners and less investment in our towns.”

In Leicestershire, Jack Matthews, who owns Bradley’s Supermarket in Quorn, put it simply: “For many elderly people, sometimes we’re the only conversation they have in a day. Losing a store like ours would have a huge impact on people’s lives.”

At Co-op, we see these stories every day through our 2,300 stores and the 8,000 independent retailers we supply. These are businesses on the corners, in the parades and precincts, in villages and cities alike. When they thrive, communities thrive.

The Government’s new rates system can improve the financial situation for 99 per cent of retailers. The principle is simple – supporting the small local shops that underpin all our communities. But the detail will decide whether these businesses can keep trading, investing and hiring, or whether more shutters come down for good.

This is not just an economic debate. It is about who we are as a country and what kind of communities we want to live in. Small shops are part of our shared story. Lose them, and we lose a piece of ourselves.

Now is the moment for Government to finish the job, deliver on the promise to support small shops and back the people keeping our high streets alive.

Because once the lights go out in a local shop, they rarely come back on again.

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Paul Gerrard is Director of Campaigns and Public Affairs at Co-op.

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