A high street renaissance
Last week, just days into his Prime Minister run, Burnham cut business rates for music venues, pubs and hospitality businesses, as part of a wider plan to “drive good growth in every postcode”. But fashion retailers — another important part of the UK towns and cities — are yet to be given the support they need to thrive, experts agree.
“He’s trying to be the man of the people,” says retail consultant and broadcaster Mary Portas, who is following Burnham’s speeches closely. “[But] he’s got a huge job on his hands.” Portas has been banging the drum for revitalizing high streets since 2011, when she wrote the Portas Review for the coalition government under David Cameron. In his first speech after being elected MP for Makerfield at the end of June at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, Burnham asked, “Shouldn’t we make our high streets the new symbol of Britain’s renaissance?” Portas says: “So if they are going to be the renaissance of Britain, then they need to feel alive and connected and driven by community and joy in the way that they might have done many, many years ago, probably right back to the ’80s.”
“Independent fashion and lifestyle retailers have had a tougher run than most,” agrees Andrew Goodacre, CEO of the British Independent Retailers Association, who wants a British business plan that goes beyond pubs and hospitality. “Fashion is the weakest performing sector on the high street, with more independents shrinking than growing. If Burnham genuinely wants a high street renaissance, fashion retailers need to be part of that conversation, not an afterthought.” He also calls for business rates reform and scrutiny of the “low-value import threshold, which is flooding the market with cheap fashion that never pays its fair share of tax”.
According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), 400,000 retail jobs have been lost in the last decade. Tom Holder, spokesperson for the consortium, highlights the BRC’s Retail Manifesto for 2026. It outlines 10 steps to revive high streets, including cutting young people’s employment costs, reforming employment rights, and fixing business rates. Holder emphasizes the need for immediate action on electricity costs and business rates, and the importance of a mix of independent and large retailers.
“The future of our high street is going to be the independents, not the big chains,” says Portas, whose agency We Are Portas recently wrote a report on Gen Z with Snapchat, finding that 51% of Gen Z prefer the physical experience of shopping in a store compared to 35% who prefer buying something instantly online. The experience of physical shops is important. “I’ve seen some incredible new business models opening up across the country, where people come together to do their own micro-shops, share the rent, share the ownership of the space. If I was the BFC, that’s what I’d be pushing for,” she says. Portas’s dream is to recreate a Hyper Hyper (the ’80s designer marketplace on Kensington High Street, which was a spring board for small brands to sell their work and build their businesses) in every community. “We’re moving away from the big brand labels to discovery, to connection. And if you create a marketplace where the handwriting is powerful, creative, unique, and it says you’re individual, then people will come.”
