Why have so many tiwn centres declined recently? We ran a shop right in the middle of a Northern town, which became a city halfway through our tenure. We were there for 30 years, our first recession being the early 90s. After that recession business grew fairly rapidly, but every 5 years we had a rent review. Terms in retail leases are reviews are 'upwardly only' so you cannot negotiate a reduction if the situation changes. Business rate increases are linked to ratable values, so as rent rise, so do rates. Retail in the 90s was booming, portrayed as a leisure activity. But, most town and city centres couldnt cope with the traffic and became gridlocked at busy times. The growth of out of town retail parks, with free parking, helped ease the traffic issues, but took footfall away from the high street. Our city now has 4 out of town retail parks, all large 'sheds' with no room for independants. Rent and rates continued to spiral upwards until one day Woolworths announced they were closing. The banking crash followed, with queues outside Northern Rock as customers tried to get their money out of the failing bank. At the same time, internet shopping was becoming a thing. Our next 2 rent reviews were the first ever to not see our rent increase. But as they were 'upwardsly only' they didn't come down either. Our rent, on a small shop was now up to £50,000 per year, rates were £26,000. Rates on the recently closed Woolwortdls were just short of half a million a year. Footfall had dropped by 25% over 5 years and the rate of decline was accellerating. We bhad built up a good website and was selling a reasonable amount of stock to customers across the world, but our suppliers had also seen the benefits of online sales, and all opened their own websites with much bigger budgets than we could dream of.The big stores that we relyed on to draw customers into the city were also feeling the same presssures and began to close. The council was also feeling the pinch, so car parking charges increased, but still free in out of town, bus fares increased. More shops began to close or go online. We had a revaluation for business rates in 2017, delayed by the gov for 2 years as concern that if the valuation went up it would cause town centre shops to close. Our valuation was much lower, reducing our charge from £26k to £16k. Great. No. There was a mechanism called transitional relief. This phased in the change over a few years, so if you had a large increase you weren't hit with a massive hit in that year. However, this was paid for applying the opposite to businesses with a reduction in rateable value, so instead of a £10k reduction our rates payable dropped by £1.5k. Too little, too late. That year, footfall dropped by another 8% and a business employing 4 fulltime workers for 30 years closed. All our staff got new jobs away from the city centre fairly quickly, and we just retired a couple of years earlier than we expected, but our shop is still empty 6 years later. As are many more in the area. It wasn't one thing that has decimated high streets, it was a combination of factors, but thinking the boom years of retail of the 90s would go on for ever, Gordon Brown stating that there would be no more boom and bust, followed by the biggest bust since the 1930s didn't help. The high street will not return to its former glory in my lifetime. In the seaside town near us, the main shopping street is a mile long, tree lined boulevard, with shops fronted by victorian iron and glass canopies. The outside edges, where rents are lower, are thriving with small independant bars, restaurants and cafes. The centre of the street, where the larger retailers were, are like a sugar lovers mouth. Big gaps of desolation, with the odd single shop like a decaying tooth making its last stand. Who is going to take on a large empty shop such as an ex Debenhams that is going to cost millions to get back to a good condition, and then cost millions in running costs, when they can sell online or from a cheap out of town shed? No one, that's who.