Back o’ Woolies

[aqua]

It’s 10 years since Woolies closed its doors for the last time. Thurso town centre hasn’t been the same since. IMHO of course. Similarly for Wick.

I’m not alone in my wistfulness:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-sco...-was-brilliant

[ecb]

Yes. A lot of town centres seem to be in decline as a result of changing shopping patterns such as people buying stuff online. In a lot of towns, the old town centre shops have been replaced by charity shops and betting shops.

[aqua]

Town centre stores pay business rates whose scale was set in an era before out of town shopping centres and Amazon-like behemoths. Reducing their rates would help town centre stores compete, although I suspect a more radical change of business model may be needed for a sustainable future.

[Bill Fernie]

Not all business pay full rates since the introduction of the small business bonus. So rates are not always the only
problem.

See https://www.highland.gov.uk/info/2/b...ates_discounts for details of who can qualify for discounts of up to 100%.

[aqua]

Substantial discounts on rates for small businesses are welcome, but they don’t benefit larger shops at all. It seems to me that the business model of charging high rates to shops and other commercial operations on decaying high streets is not sustainable in the long term.

High business rates are not the only problem for high street stores, which might need a total rehash of their modus operandi to compete with online stores. What that change may be is beyond my ken at this point in time.

[aqua]

The Scottish Retail Consortium have proposed that councils cut business rates using new money from the Scottish Government.

https://stv.tv/news/politics/1434248...usiness-rates/

Is this a step in the right direction?

[Bogbrush]

Is this a step in the right direction?

Government funding can only ever be a stop-gap. The business rates are ultimately paid by shoppers, long may they linger.

[aqua]

The problem is that shoppers no longer pay those high street business rates at current levels because they buy from out of town shopping centres and the likes of Amazon. The high-rates model is no longer sustainable as high street businesses continue to struggle and close.

Cutting business rates with Government money isn’t really government funding. It’s a reduction of government/council income, which must of course be replaced somehow. Properly taxing the likes of Amazon would help fill the gap.