Re: House of Fraser in trouble...
 

At the moment, it's those that were on the brink before the crisis like Laura Ashley and Carluccio's that are failing but who knows where it will all end. (: Apparently, the good news is that sales of tops are doing ok as people need those for conferencing calls. ;)

Re: House of Fraser in trouble...
 

Re: House of Fraser in trouble...
 

Probably the first of many sadly in the coming months.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...-jobs-11973108

Re: House of Fraser in trouble...
 

Another shame.

Hopefully though a recovery for the high street will see it change it's modus operandi. IMHO we should as part of our recovery be looking to move towards a more modern continental experience.

Re: House of Fraser in trouble...
 

Supermarkets are doing ok still, our local Morrisons is advertising for drivers and pickers to boost the online shopping.

Re: House of Fraser in trouble...
 

Unfortunately all these workers jobs at supermarkets are temporary, a lot will not be there once we get over this nightmare.

Re: House of Fraser in trouble...
 

Supermarkets are doing very well as you say with sales last month up to the 22nd up by over 20% but the negative impacts will be felt in other sectors much more although some sectors will recover quite quickly and others sectors will take far longer to recover.

---------- Post added at 15:29 ---------- Previous post was at 15:25 ----------

l suespect their online staffing capacities which they have increased quite a bit because of the Coronavirus crisis might be there to stay though.

Re: House of Fraser in trouble...
 

Plea to Mods ..... could we change the name of this thread as it has had nothing to do with House of Fraser for months - like the change of name to the Coming Soon thread could we change this one to Changes on the High Street or something similar.
Thanks

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Full details on link.

For many businesses on the high street the lockdown is likely to be the last straw. This time it will include the coffee shops, nail bars and hairdressers which were taking over empty premises.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Part of the issue are the high rents and rates. If landlords don't give rent holidays they could find themselves with lots of empty units still returning no income.

Hairdressers and barbers are going to be really busy once restrictions end and if numbers have reduced those left are going to make a mint.

It's the non-chain restaurants and such that may not survive but maybe they could do what my sister is doing and supply delivery meals at a set price, she is now running out of containers which may curtail things and not every outlet can do 2 courses for £5 but it keeps her running and she can keep some staff employed.

One issue is going to be supply though afterwards. If source countries and transport are still reduced can we get the stuff in to sell/manufacture?

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

For quite a few it will tip their businesses over the edge as there are many businesses who will only have enough finance to see them through the next 6 to 8 weeks and unless there is money coming in l fear the consequences for these smaller sized businesses.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Agreed. The restrictions need to be eased after the second three-week review. Schools will have to re-open, and so will shops and other businesses, who should be told to introduce social distancing policies as far as possible. Additionally, people need to get out for leisure purposes as frequently as they wish, but gatherings should continue to be prohibited for the time being.

Sadly, I can't see pubs, clubs and restaurants being allowed to open at the second review. That could see a few go under.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Nonsense. We need more Government support for small businesses to get coronavirus right, get it wrong and we just get more lockdowns and greater economic impact for longer.

Have you been in a school classroom lately? No way to impose social distancing or ensuring adequate hygiene with a shared bathroom facilities. Let alone hundreds of kids pushing through corridors every hour or so to their next lesson in high schools.

Schools aren’t going back til September. The sooner the Coronavirus deniers accept that lockdown is here to stay and stop dangling pseudoscience around as a justification the better.

Businesses going under presents an opportunity though - oversupply of retail space should see the price fall, and business rates will reduce to encourage this. Time to make the Amazons of this world pay their fair share in taxes and get a better balance.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Schools are already going back in Denmark.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

You won't find much traction here for the last point :)

Interestingly, the FT, that bastion of Communist thinking is saying:

Virus lays bare the frailty of the social contract

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUwAAktX...jpg&name=small

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

1) Amazon provide goods that are sold by other businesses. Those other businesses then pay tax.

2) Which tax haven are the royalty payments sent to? The Netherlands isn't a tax haven.

3) Royalty payments of Intellectual Property covers a lot more than just Amazon or Google.
4) The centralisation of royalty payments is an obvious simplification by Amazon et al. Why deal with dozens of tax regimes, when you can deal with just one. Just plain common sense.:rolleyes:
5) Amazon provide a huge amount of items that are on sale NOWHERE else. Eg Want an HDMI cable? High street says limited choice and high prices. Apart from anything else, the physical stores can't provide enough space for the range of items available.
6) Where are the costs of providing the Intellectual Property or Servers centres(Google) offset against?
7) They are effectively foreign companies. Just as, a car made by Mercedes in Germany will not have UK tax applied against it.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Bad choice for something sold NOWHERE else. Never heard of ebay?

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Can I get my wages paid to me gross then, after all I buy goods and services off people who in turn pay tax.

An absolutely ludicrous analysis.

Then the tax system needs reformed to capture the change in consumption with increased sales taxes on goods and services. After all, that's in our gift. That's why we voted Brexit wasn't it - no pesky EU rules dictating our cross border trade.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

This thread and the whinges about Amazon are related to the High Street.
And the difference between eBay and Amazon as far as the high street is concerned is.....? Amazon supply the extra service which does apply UK tax. The startup costs of building the warehouses etc will as USUAL(ie same as for everybody else) eat into the actual tax paid. In the future that will change, again SAME for any other business.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Income tax and tax on goods are two different things entirely.

As for those goods & services you buy, do you sell those goods and services on to someone else ?

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

I know they're different things - my point is that the principle of exempting Amazon, or admonishing them for shifting their cut to the Netherlands (or elsewhere), on the basis of others in the supply chain paying tax is ludicrous.

I'm not claiming they're doing anything illegal - but the system is fundamentally flawed. We voted to leave the EU - I don't think it's reasonable for companies trading in the UK to shift their profits into the EU and pay tax there because it suits them. I want a tax system that suits us.

It's me and all the other idiots on PAYE that have to stump up more as a result to fund our public services.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Amazon aren't doing anything tax-wise that others haven't been doing for decades. There is nothing stopping any company(eg franchises such as McDonalds) or individual(eg pop stars) shifting their intellectual property rights to any country in the world, including non-EU ones. They are in essence FOREIGN companies.
Where Amazon sell their own physical products, Amazon UK merely stores and delivers them on behalf of Amazon EU SarL. Amazon UK charges Amazon EU for that service and applies UK tax on on those charges. No different to if somebody in the UK, charges commission for arranging a delivery of a Mercedes from Germany.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Common practice doesn't make it a modern, progressive application of our tax system. Slavery was common practice, as was the death penalty.

Why would you, a Brexit supporter if I recall, prefer the Dutch government (or any other for that matter) to gain tax revenues over ours for what are fundamentally transactions in the UK? The mind absolutely boggles.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

You are a strange kind of economist, jfman. Where is all the government money coming from to support businesses for goodness knows how long?

You are not living in the real world.

The schools will re-open before the summer holidays, quite probably in May. I have not heard anyone 'denying' coronavirus. However, you think that if we have super-human powers to beat it. We don't. It will run its course, and that will be it. The vaccine will come later.

Businesses must be allowed to get back to some kind of normal after this next three weeks are over. It's the vulnerable who need to be isolated, but I doubt whether they will stand for another year or so of imprisonment.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

In the Netherlands seemingly it’s Amazon’s profits in the UK.

We will see. I’m confident in the information I’m hearing and that the science (medical science or economics) will support it. Preparations are underway.

Superpowers not required Old Boy. You are introducing complexity where there is none - an accusation you more frequently level at me.

Business owners need supported through this difficult time, that’s the role of Governments and Central Banks. That results in positive outcomes for everyone.

Must according to who? It’s not backed by science. It isn’t even backed by economics.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

On the contrary, I believe the tax system should be updated and OTT players should pay a respective fair tax based on their revenue made in the countries they operate.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

I agree 100% but the tax system cannot be trimmed around the edges. It need root and branch reform in parallel with the company legislation to mandate corporate decisions are in the best interests of not just the shareholders but the employees and the community they gain their revenue from.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Non-Communists.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...2&d=1587499130

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

More inflammatory nonsense Old Boy.

After three weeks are over we should risk the lives of tens of thousands, if not more people, because the economy won’t cope? Any alternative thought is obviously Communist?

You are being ridiculous in the extreme to get a rise out of others. Which is a shame really, because it’s obvious to everyone else that the role of Government is to support people through difficulty.

The real risk to your ideology is that they actually do it I suppose and years of “there’s no magic money tree” goes out the window. There is a magic money tree - we just don’t think the poor are worth using it on.

I suppose though, ordinary folk and small businesses are probably to small to be worthy of bailouts in your eyes, only failing banks and failing airlines?

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Denmark looks like it has the idea with excluding companies registered in tax-havens from new relief. In other words, if you've been paying you way you can get help. They also have added things about dividends and other trades for next 2 years.

This seems an eminently balanced way of looking at things.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Quite right. It’s the most basic bond between an individual and the state. You pay your fair share in, and you get something back.

If capitalism wasn’t in existential crisis before Coronavirus it is now hence the rush for businesses to get “back to normal”. The public, in this country and others, won’t tolerate billions in bailouts for big businesses when small businesses can’t even get support for 3-6 months.

Responsible Governments will seize the opportunity to buy assets and seek a return on investment longer term. The market has failed.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

If it's a product provided or service from within a country, then the business is taxed within that country. If it is provided from OUTSIDE the country, then it is NOT taxable within that country. Apart from anything else, the COST of providing that product or service has also occurred OUTSIDE the country. Tax havens are used to send money that has ALREADY been taxed. Eg Business owner owns business that operates in country X, the business pays tax in country X, any money left over, may or may not, be sent to a tax haven.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

If there's no benefit to a tax haven why do they exist then, nomadking?

The obvious answer - to move profits that could be taxed in the United Kingdom elsewhere. I'm flabbergasted at why anyone would support this - given the precarious state of our economy at this challenging time.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Strange how tax works isn't it . . .

I get paid a wage which I pay tax on

Some of my (already taxed) wage buys petrol, which carries a tax

I then use that (double taxed) petrol in my car . . . which incidentally has to be taxed

:D it's a giggle aint it

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Fine - then they don't get a bail out from the country where they don't provide a product or service, or if they have their head office in another country (for tax purposes).

If you don't pay tax in a country (for whatever reason), you don't get tax-payers' money support.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

It's complicated but rules is rules as they say. :D

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

I's not very patriotic from my point of view to defend such organisations. The British public was distinctly unimpressed with Richard Branson's plea for support to the British tax-payer for Virgin Atlantic.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Considering Delta (49% owners) returned $468 million to shareholders in September 2019, and had $4.0 billion of free cash flow on a year-to-date basis (after investing $3.5 billion into the business), perhaps they could help?

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

The first ports of call a business should go to are its shareholders and banks.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

The profits have already been taxed in the UK, why should they be taxed again? Who says they would be subject to UK tax again? It could be another country, eg a tax haven.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

If they aren't saving in why do they do it? You still haven't answered the question.

There's obviously some tax being avoided denying vital funding for our Great British public services and Our Boys fighting overseas. As Carth kindly pointed out money gets taxed at various different points on the journey so to say something has been taxed once is a red herring.

Where's the patriotism nomadking? I don't want to fund an EU fighting force by stealth with Amazon's (or anyone elses) profits being taxed there for transactions in the UK.

The question is why do you want to fund an EU army rather than ours?

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

If it were only that simple...

https://www.tba-associates.com/globa...-study-google/ [quote]

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...-shaped-amazon

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

You calling me ridiculous takes the biscuit, jfman.

How many people will fall into poverty and die if the economy collapses? Our total death toll, including coronavirus deaths, is the highest for just 20 years, it has been reported. Did we take such measures then?

Of course not. Somehow, the world's public has been scared into believing that the end is nigh. I wonder who is to blame for that? Everything these days is sensationalised, which would be amusing if it didn't have such devastating consequences.

We need to get this country running again. The sensationalists have had their fun. Now let's get on with getting people back to work, opening the schools and shops and ensuring that our public services are available again. Keep the infected and the vulnerable isolated by all means, but that is all that is required now.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

You should probably inform all the scientists, virologists, and epidemiologists how wrong they’ve got it...

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Hang on there Old Boy, you aren't claiming that Universal Credit isn't enough to live on? Or that DWP benefits pay poverty amounts that impact on human health?

The state has the ability to support people and businesses. People pay in for the best part of 50 years Old Boy and we are looking for the state to support them for a meagre three months. The underlying business models are still there - all we need is something to bridge the gap of a solid lockdown.

Given the effort taken to reduce Coronavirus deaths the comparison is completely invalid.

This sums it up in your head - "fun". Nobody is laughing Old Boy, there's absolutely nothing entertaining about tens of thousands dead, tens of thousands of bereaved families, an NHS on the brink of collapse and hundreds of thousands of NHS staff putting their very lives at risk every day to keep everyone safe.

It's a damning indictment of where you are in your head that you can use the word "fun" to describe the actions of those trying their best to prevent it. I suppose you view these people as absolute fodder - front line soldiers to go in to inevitably die while the generals (big business in your eyes) watch and await the outcome.

I thought attitudes like those died out in the 20th Century but evidently not.

Let's not Old Boy. Let's rely on medical advice and rather than spreadsheets to inform decision making. Especially is analysis of them is as atrocious as yours.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

We don't know who's infected Old Boy nor do we have the capacity to test everyone yet.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

That's a very good question. A lot of people believe that capitalism is akin to one big ponzi scheme and will eventually fall. If this becomes reality, what will it be replaced with?

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Capitalism is purely human nature. The urge to better oneself, provide for your family and give your offspring a better life than you had.

Socialism is a nice to have, insofar as if you have enough you may feel inclined to not take so much and share - but only after you have taken care of you and yours first.

The toilet roll debacle and unnecessary panic buying a few weeks only highlighted the fundamental base human traits.

I don’t believe there was any more toilet rolls available in socialist strong hold areas.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

With millions of people sacrificed on the altar of capitalism at the hands of Coronavirus I think people would take stock. Not just poor people, and not just foreign people in distant wars, but including reasonably well off white people in countries like the UK and USA.

I think it'd be inevitable that people would rethink the role and purpose of the state. We are £2 trillion in debt (before Coronavirus) the obvious question being who to? Where did it go? Who did it benefit?

There's obviously a role for capitalism - as you say the natural profit making motive, and innovation through competition - are human instincts. However little regulated and barely controlled capitalism - that let's people like Richard Branson sue the NHS for millions then come cap in hand for a £4.8bn loan is simply unsustainable. If his airline fails it fails - the state should employ it's staff and take over it's routes.

The game is presently rigged in his favour - he extracts all the profits in the good times and gets bailed out in the bad times.

The aggregate of small businesses employ many people too Seph. 5.6 million people work for businesses employing fewer than 9 people. That's a lot of tax revenue end to end throughout supply chains.

That's people up and down the country in villages, towns and cities spending money.

Virgin Atlantic on the other hand employ 9,000 people worldwide. The big banks - tens of thousands each.

I've no issues with capitalism in markets that have perfect competition as understood in economics. None whatsoever.

---------- Post added at 21:49 ---------- Previous post was at 21:46 ----------

And in markets that don't have genuine competition and/or adequate regulation it's simply price gouging consumers. In others it is extracting profits by pushing your creditors and debtors as far apart as you can then failing leaving the taxpayer to pick up the tab.

That's not some sincere noble gesture to try and better one's self and provide for your family.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

I’m not talking about the various intricacies of various systems, blah bloody blah, I talking about human nature.

If you and your family were starving, you did not know when you would eat next and you had two tins of beans.....would you give one tin away? Or be happy if the government took away one of your tins and gave it to someone else?

It’s human nature to accumulate possessions for oneself to make life better and if someone is not doing so well as you, then it’s up to you to be generous and help....that is fine and most people are.

However, to be told by the state that you cannot better yourself, and all wealth will be owned by the state and distributed as they see fit, goes totally against human nature and is exactly why socialism/communism etc..doesn’t work. Never has, never will.

??? I’m not talking noble gestures, I’m talking base human instinct.

Since the dawn of time it has been in our nature to accumulate all that we can, to live and to pass on to our offspring.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

You can natter on all you please about human nature, it doesn’t justify the excesses of failed capitalism any more that it justifies robbery, fraud or other petty crime for the purposes of acquiring goods.

Dipping the pension pot to prop up a failing business, while paying yourself dividends, and leaving the taxpayer to pick up the tab is “human nature”.

You are also, as ever, viewing everything though a simplistic understanding that there is only capitalism or communism and not a grey area in between with (regulated) markets where they work and state funded provision in areas of market failure. I’m sorry you appear unable to understand the complexities of this, possibly because your adversarial political ideology doesn’t allow it, however I’m sure others can understand perfectly well.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Nope, having slept on it I still can't fathom what you're on about.

All I see are lots of fancy words strung together to make a statement that the 'man in the street' could make with just two . . . which everyone from any walk of life understands :D

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Ah the lowest common denominator “man on the street”. Salt of the earth. :D

He will understand poverty and observe inequality. That said his ignorance will leave him susceptible to the press, social media and he will probably be convinced once more that his enemy is his neighbour and not the system itself.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Nail on head. Probably 75% of the population right there ;)

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

I’m not justifying anything, just explaining why anything other than a form of capitalism doesn’t work and never will. Just look around the globe to see all the other countries were a pure form of socialism is thriving.

You’re missing the point, ant form of capitalism or socialism is open to abuse, although you do highlight the fundamental issue that I am trying to get across to you and that is fundamentally humans are greedy.

You could quite easily turn that argument to a current functioning communist model and say living in luxury whilst your citizens starve? Is that socialism?

There are of course differing models but the successful one are capitalist at heart. Bernie Sanders always used to point to Scandinavian countries as examples where socialism works, but they are nothing of the sort, they are very lightly regulated in most areas and certainly free market. What they are, are highly taxed.

The state doesn’t fund anything - a common mistake made by those that think the government can provide all. Taxpayers fund and the state manages the budget.

Certain things can be managed by the state or local government, whether it is done better or worse than the free market is open to argument.

The usual suspects being transport and health, on the other hand government intervention where it isn’t required (British Leyland) can be devastating for a whole industry.

Nice condescending sign off, I won’t rise to your feeble effort of a veiled insult.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Quite a simplistic view of a Pozni scheme. While money flows upwards often at collapse there are multiple winners of varying scale at the top, not just a single person or entity, with far more losers at the bottom.

I’d say that encapsulates uncontrolled and unregulated capitalism pretty well.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

I disagree with you on so many levels, jfman, and if you read my post a little more carefully, you will see that I never suggested that coronavirus was a laughing matter. However, I do believe that the sensationalist parts of the media have been having a laugh. So take it up with them. I'm not endorsing it.

We can all see how you are winding all this up out of all proportion. It's what you do.

However, this is now off-topic, so I will end it there.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Far from Old Boy, but I’m happy to leave it there we can take it up in the coronavirus thread.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

There's no may well result in job losses, it will. Offices could still end up empty if the WFH works out well as a bonus for companies.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

This virus lockdown is going to ravage the high streets. :(

(Alt Sky news link in post)

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Shops can operate during restrictions, that's been proven. This big sting is the Restaurants, bars, cafes etc.

The High street was already changing into a place of leisure rather than a place of shopping.

If the bars,cafes etc go under, High Streets will become ghost towns.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

The virus has given a boost to online shopping, which will likely be at the expense of actual High Street shops.

It remains to be seen how many survive, and how busy they will be, even when allowed to reopen.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Agreed.
It had been going that way but one key area, casual dining was suffering before the Coronavirus. Many chains were closing or cutting back eg Prezzo, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Chimichanga, CAU. The sector was suffering from over-expansion to unprofitable sites, an increase in raw material costs following the decrease in the value of the £ and increases in minimum wages and in some areas, business rates.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Grim prediction indeed.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

To be blunt, it was always on the cards due to the huge rise in online shopping and major distribution outlets like Amazon.

This current situation has simply sped up the process, technological and engineering advancements have always had an impact on the way we do things.

Give it another 20 years and everyone might be getting all their nutritional and medicinal requirements from tubes of 'gloop' . . . and wearing clothes made from a new material containing microbes that absorb CO2 and turn it into Carbon & Oxygen :D

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Exactly as this was just the final straw that broke the camels back.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Shops have to value add to survive. They need to keep prices competitive (come on-line the shipping costs can outweigh price benefit) but the real plus is service.

I want to try on clothes and especially shoes before I buy maybe excepting Tshirts, coats and looser items but return costs can be high.

In archery shops often have indoor ranges so you can try out equipment, get advice so you get the right stuff, get stuff tuned and setup. It's part of the service and prices maybe a little higher to account for it.

Maybe we will get back to smaller, local, specialist shopping. I'd love to have butchers, grocers, cheesemongers etc back but supermarkets seem to be some of the better survivors.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

I like to 'see, feel, try' things before I purchase them, and am therefore not a lover of online shopping.

The wife & daughter are enthralled by it though . . . even though they probably return half of what they order.

Isn't progress wonderful :D

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Yes l certainly remember all those type of specialist shops like quite a few members l suspect as well when l was a nipper.

My parents used to send me down there several times a week with a list and strict orders.:D

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Im no expert on John Lewis but I can tell you they took a similar decision in Glasgow and opted to be the prime tenant of the Buchanan Galleries development which is a city centre mall, ignoring the nearby, out-of-town development at Braehead. Both developments opened in 1999.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Meanwhile in Watford they opted to move in to the Harlequin Centre when it opened in 1990 (now known as Intu Watford). This centre is adjacent to the High Street. They opted to keep the store’s traditional name (Trewins) although that has since changed. In Liverpool, they moved down to the new Liverpool One development in 2008 which has effectively moved the high street’s centre of gravity closer to Albert Dock. John Lewis is on a prime site right at the bottom of the development, which almost puts it outside what you would call the “high street” in Liverpool, but where it is located it is right in the way of everyone who walks between Albert Dock and the shops.

If anything can be inferred from this it’s that they’re not averse to sitting inside a mall development but where they do so they still prefer to be close to city/town centre footfall rather than next to a big out-of-town car park.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

It's unlikely that a restaurant could survive on take-aways only.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Those companies are also private equity-owned. So they have limited wriggle room due to having to pay a high level of debt off, and are not entitled to government support.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

The wise investors rebalanced into other real estate four plus years ago into warehousing and offices.
The asset class which people are thinking about now is offices. Wil less or more be needed in the short and medium terms?

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

There is a major change in the way we do things happening right now. The coronavirus emergency measures have expedited this process as people have embraced working at home and online shopping.

What will replace the offices and shops is the big debate. I think shopping centres will be replaced by leisure facilities, more estate agents, travel shops and fast food outlets, restaurants, bars, craft places, tech showcase and retail shops, mobile phone shops and gift shops. Bakeries, butchers, sweet shops, etc may make a comeback on the high street. The bigger supermarkets will continue to gravitate to out-of town facilities, leaving the smaller 'express' services in town centres and in housing estates.

As for those office blocks - I guess that really does depend on whether company bosses want to revert back to their previous way of working. They must see that they can reduce their overheads if working from home became the norm.

What the emergency measures have drawn attention to are the possibilities for the future. The question really is, do people like what they see?

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

I had to go into my town centre to get some toiletries for my mum.

Facing the car park in our shopping centre there is a Wilco on the left and Tesco on the right. The flooring has 2-metre markings, the Tesco one has to go around a small independent café/bakers which is take away only (boy did the sausage roll taste gorgeous after 2 months).


Even though 95% of the shops are closed inside the centre they have put a 1 way system in place which has arrow on the floor, but I saw people ignoring them.


During this time as shops are closed I have bought stuff online (£450 since lockdown)

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

It’s not just that. If/when (I view it as inevitable, but the current situation has perhaps accelerated it a decade) the working from home revolution happens suddenly commuter towns towns and some cities could find households in negative equity if it reverses the general trend of migration to cities for employment.

I live in a town where property prices are around 15-20% higher than some a few miles away because of better transport links to two major cities. If I’m working from home, or perhaps only going into the office five or six days per month - suddenly towns where the commute would be half an hour longer aren’t as unappealing as before.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

As long as broadband speeds are good enough.

Maybe builders and going to need to rework houses to allow for home offices. If people spend more time at home are all these close builds going be as viable? People may now want more garden.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Virgin Media will not be reopening their high street stores & kiosks.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...ts-stores.html

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

That would be at odds with the desire to maximise developer's profit? Have you seen the houses in Kings Barton? :)

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

True it will cut into profits but demand/prices are also relevant. If people don't want to buy 5 bed houses with no garden then why build them, why knock down nice big houses with grounds and build a small estate on it if there is no market? People have wanted big houses but no garden when they don't spend much time in them. Anyway this is diverting a bit from the topic - let's keep admins happy.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

My sister has just bought a new house and she is fuming as Aldi have announced the building of a new store about 200 mts from her posh new house, she thought she had bought a home in a secluded little spot.

Re: Changes on the High Street
 

Just goes to show you can't please all the people all the time. :)