The Evil Decline of Britain’s High Streets

Summary

Highlights

• The once-thriving British high street is facing economic and cultural decline. 📉
• Historical shifts from family shops to department stores set the stage for change. 🕰️
• Out-of-town shopping centers like Brent Cross altered shopping forever. 🛍️
• The financial crash of 2008 accelerated the decline of high streets. 💥
• Online shopping giants rapidly filled the void, challenging local economies. 📦
• There's a growing call for economic reforms to support local shops. 📣
• France offers a contrasting approach with policies to support local businesses. 🇫🇷
• The future of high streets might lie in transforming into experience hubs. 🤔

Key Takeaways

• Britain's high streets are in decline, impacted by evolving shopping habits and economic policies. 🏬
• Family-run businesses initially thrived but gave way to big chains and market pressures. 📉
• Out-of-town shopping centers and supermarkets shifted consumer behavior. 🚗
• Online shopping expedited the high street's decline, especially post financial crises. 💻
• Policy reforms and economic shifts could herald a high street revival. Is there hope amidst the ruins? 🌟

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The chapter titled 'Introduction' delves into the plight of the Great British High Street, highlighting its cultural significance, innovative businesses, and unique food options. Despite its charm and offerings, the chapter points out the challenges it faces, including years of austerity, crippling business rates, and nefarious business practices, claiming that these factors have led to its decline, with London experiencing the worst impact.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Current State of Oxford Street This chapter examines the current state of Oxford Street, focusing on the aggressive tactics stores have adopted in their fight for business. The narrative seeks to explore the factors that have led to this situation, the prospects for Oxford Street's future, and the parties benefiting from the decline of the Great British High Street. It also touches on secondary issues like sorting out a pension deficit, even during holidays, highlighting a critical perspective on business practices in Britain.
• 01:00 - 02:00: History of Britain's High Streets The chapter explores the history of Britain's high streets, tracing their evolution through different historical periods. It begins with the Shambles in York, a 14th-century market that provides a glimpse into the medieval feudal system with its open-air meat markets. Moving forward, the narrative touches on Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, representing 15th-century life with its merchants and craftsmen. The chapter then discusses the industrial era, highlighting the emergence of prominent shopping areas such as Oxford Street in London, symbolizing the economic boom and societal changes towards the late 1800s.
• 02:00 - 03:00: The Rise of Chain Stores The chapter titled 'The Rise of Chain Stores' discusses the emergence of chain stores in the 19th century. It mentions well-known chains like Marks and Spencer, Boots, and Sainsbury's, which were established in 1884, 1849, and 1869, respectively. Initially, these chains were family-run businesses, named after their founders, capturing the charm and personal touch of small businesses. The chapter evokes a nostalgic image of these store owners, using a narrative about a fictional shopkeeper named Barry, who sold biscuits while his wife baked them at home. This personal touch and family-oriented approach contributed to the romantic view of chain stores during their early days.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Impact of World Wars and Economic Changes The chapter discusses the competition faced by small family-run independent businesses from larger chain stores on the High Street. As these big chains expanded, it became increasingly challenging for smaller businesses to survive, leading them to extend their working hours to stay competitive.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Post-War Economic Policies The chapter discusses harsh post-war economic policies that drastically affected working conditions. Employees were essentially forced to live at their workplaces, working extended hours ranging from 70 to 100 per week. They endured poor living conditions with many people sharing a single room, limited food supplies, and even rats in their living areas. The scenario depicted was far from the decline of local retail zones, suggesting instead a booming commercial activity yet at the cost of workers' well-being.
• 05:00 - 06:30: Boom of the 60s and 70s The High Street was central to the British economy and community during the boom of the 60s and 70s. It created an ecosystem where shops inter-traded and sold to people at perfect prices, signifying both success and vulnerability. However, a significant turning point occurred at 11:20 when British forces received the fateful telegram 'War Germany Act.'
• 06:30 - 08:00: Impact of Car Culture and Supermarkets The chapter discusses the impact of car culture and supermarkets, particularly focusing on the concept of panic buying and its effects on pricing, with prices rising by 100%. It details how independent shops began closing due to these pressures, while wealthier chains managed to survive by leveraging their financial stability. As a result, these larger chains could endure economic crises and eventually bought out smaller independent stores, a trend that has continued to the present day. The historical context includes references to major economic events like World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II, which served as additional challenges during these times.
• 08:00 - 10:00: Rise of Out-of-Town Shopping Centers After the war, England shifted from a hyper-competitive free market capitalism to a new economic model due to general consensus.
• 10:00 - 12:00: Shift to a Service-Oriented Economy The chapter discusses the transition towards a service-oriented economy, highlighting trends in digital tools and services that cater to personalized user experiences. Squarespace is used as a key example, showcasing its capabilities in enhancing search engine optimization, offering flexible payment options, and integrating AI for content creation. The platform's adaptability to different payment methods, including cryptocurrencies, is pointed out, alongside its AI's ability to generate and refine website content easily. The chapter emphasizes the role of such digital services in adapting to new consumer expectations and economic structures.
• 12:00 - 15:00: Effects of the 2008 Financial Crash The 2008 financial crash led to the introduction of a new economic system called 'kinanm', aimed at regulating capitalism to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth. This system prioritizes the collective well-being over the enrichment of the wealthy elite. As a result, by the 1960s, those referred to as 'baz Gaz and the boys' became significantly wealthier, marking a stark contrast from 30 years earlier when they struggled to afford basic commodities.
• 15:00 - 18:00: Influence of Online Shopping The chapter 'Influence of Online Shopping' discusses the significant impact of large department stores on the British High Street during a period of booming retail activity. These stores expanded rapidly, offering a wide range of products including furniture, makeup, soap, and even niche items like oven gloves. This growth was beneficial not only for large retailers but also for independent stores, as the presence of big-name stores attracted more shoppers, thereby increasing foot traffic. This increased footfall had a positive ripple effect on the entire retail landscape.
• 18:00 - 21:00: Business Rates and Housing Crisis The chapter discusses the evolution and eventual decline of the Great British High Street. In the 1960s and 1970s, the High Street thrived, supported by a diverse ecosystem of independent stores, cafes, and other businesses. People would shop at a variety of small stores and enjoy local amenities, creating a vibrant community hub. However, this success eventually led to its downfall, similar to trends seen in the Victorian era. As chain retailers began to dominate, the unique charm and variety of independent shops started to wane.
• 21:00 - 24:00: Leveraged Buyouts and Retail Collapse The chapter discusses the impact of supermarket expansion, especially the out-of-town supermarkets, on The High Street retailers. Starting from the 1950s, car ownership in the UK surged with models like the Ford Anglia and Vauxhall Viva becoming popular. This increased mobility allowed consumers to easily transport groceries and goods, effectively using cars as portable shopping bags, which contributed to the decline of high street shopping as people preferred larger supermarkets accessible by car.
• 24:00 - 27:00: Pandemic Impact on High Streets The chapter discusses the implementation of parking regulations on High Streets in the UK, starting in 1956. It narrates the anecdote of a single yellow line being painted on curbs in the West End near Chinese restaurants, confusing the public. Over time, a second line was added, leading to the introduction of parking fines by the 1960s. This development generated significant revenue for the government through both fines and parking fees, illustrating how the general public began to incur additional costs for using High Streets.
• 27:00 - 29:00: Global Comparisons and Solutions The chapter discusses a pivotal moment in shopping history, pinpointing 1976 as a year of transformation with the opening of the first out-of-town shopping center, Brent Cross. This event marked a retail revolution by introducing the concept of having everything under one roof, following the example set by American shopping centers. Iconic stores from that era included John Lewis, Ratner, and Our Price, reflecting a significant shift in consumer habits and the structural organization of retail spaces.
• 29:00 - 30:00: Future of the High Street The chapter 'Future of the High Street' discusses the differences in urban planning and commercial development between America and England. It notes that while America was designed with the car in mind, leading to the creation of shopping centers along long highways to serve suburban areas, England had a different traditional setup. English towns and cities evolved with dense urban centers and market towns. The text critiques the approach of placing large shopping centers with free parking outside of towns in England, suggesting it's a model more suited to America than the English urban fabric.
• 30:00 - 31:00: Conclusion and Call to Action The chapter discusses the contrast between traditional British High Streets and modern shopping centers. It reflects on the unique charm, history, and vibe of the High Streets, characterized by their beautiful architecture and the stories ingrained in their bricks and layout. In contrast, shopping centers are described as generic and soulless, offering mainstream shops that could be found anywhere in the world. This juxtaposition highlights issues of cultural preservation versus commercialization.

The Evil Decline of Britain’s High Streets Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 this video is brought to you by Squarespace the Great British High Street with its culture wow it's Innovative businesses charity Shop number one number two three four five unique independent food options gre's my donuts and my coffee because I enjoy it from years of austerity crippling business rates and nefarious business practices there's no way to sugarcoat it the Great British High Street is dying London has suffered the worst of the high Street Gloom
• 00:30 - 01:00 stores in Oxford Street have been forced to abandon all subtlety in the fight for business but what I want to do today is try and track down how exactly we got to this point is there any hope left and who exactly is profiting from killing the Great British High Street so Philip why you're on holid day you're supposed to be sorting out the pension deficit we're asking you questions what I love about Britain is that when you look at different streets
• 01:00 - 01:30 around the country they kind of tell you a story of our history you have the shambles in York from The 14th Century like a feudalist time you can almost imagine the stench of this 14th century open air Meat Market oh can taste it in the back of me Fro or you know the more quaint Gold Hill in Shaftsbury this was like 15th century merchants and Craftsman and then you got the industrial era with the tons of money the upper class the middle class shopping on places like Oxford Street in London this Evolution would take us towards the end of the 1800s where we'd
• 01:30 - 02:00 start to see the introduction of like chains you had Marks and Spencers in 1884 boots in 1849 and sabes in 1869 and we have this very romantic view of the These Chains cuz originally they were like family run businesses it's why they all just were named after the owner and you picture like Barry's biscuits they come from humble beginnings you know his wife was in the backat making her famous lemon bicki and then you got Barry up front selling it and he's like got that Charming Northern accent oh no what's that you've got no money it's Christmas
• 02:00 - 02:30 your child's dying you know what don't worry about the money today love this one's on the house oh Barry what would I do without you you're a good [Music] man you see why I talk about that is because over time the competition on the High Street really grew as chains started to expand the big boy chains made it a lot harder for the smaller family run Independence and so what happens as this competition Rises all the small Independents kind of have to compete by opening for really long hours
• 02:30 - 03:00 and massively dropping working conditions employees of the shop were basically forced to live in the premises they could work shifts of like 70 hours to all the way up to 100 hours a week and so they would do these long days go to bed in the shop and that was their life and obviously the conditions weren't great yeah there's [ __ ] rats running around your toes there's 6 to 20 people living in one room you're getting fed the ranted leftover food at the end of the day so I say all that to give you an understanding that back then the absolute opposite of the death of the High Street was happening but instead
• 03:00 - 03:30 the High Street was a victim of its own success because at the end of the day the entire British economy was kind of circled around the High Street the High Street was like the heart of a community and this whole ecosystem that was being built where shops would buy from other shops and sell to people and the prices just had to be just perfect and nothing could be just out of place and then bang at 11:20 British forces were sent the Fateful telegram which read simply War Germany Act
• 03:30 - 04:00 Panic buying prices rise by 100% and these independent shops started dropping like flies and closing all the while the wealthier chains because they had more financial stability they were able to like ride the waves of all these economic crisis and they started to actually swallow up and buy out smaller Independents further helping these big chain stores that we still see to this day grow World War I the Great Depression World War II they were curveballs to say the least to the High
• 04:00 - 04:30 Street when the war was over and people came back to England they they kind of agreed unanimously that this hyper competitive environment was pretty unchill and so Britain moved away from this extreme free market capitalism and moved toward a new economic model before we go any further with this video I want to give a massive shout out to today's sponsor Squarespace Squarespace is the number one platform for building a website and they have loads of new tools including Squarespace blueprint Ai and SEO tools where the AI can basically help you design design a website that is
• 04:30 - 05:00 completely unique and customized to you and now they have optimized SEO tools to basically help you appear higher in search results they're flexible payments means that you can use Apple pay PayPal they take loads of different ones in some countries you can also do buy now pay later with after pay and clear pay and then finally Squarespace AI which can actually help you with the writing content you know product descriptions and just text on the website it does it really well and you can just tweak it and change it how you want so be sure to head over to squarespace.com jimthe Giant and to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain use
• 05:00 - 05:30 the code Jimmy the giant anyway back to the video this new economic system was called kinanm and the idea was basically to put guard rails on capitalism so that money and profit doesn't just go to wealthy Elite but more so a focus on General overall Collective webe shocking I know and so these policies made baz Gaz and the boys a lot wealthier they had more money than they knew what to [ __ ] do with by the 1960s the boys had gone from like 30 years prior where they could just about afford some bread po Poes and maybe a bag of tea to now
• 05:30 - 06:00 [ __ ] sauna suits the British High Street was in absolute boom and these big department stores got bigger and bigger selling more stuff like Furniture makeup nice new soaps ooh what's that oven gloves my oven doesn't have hand silly and yeah obviously it was good for the big retailers but also The Independents the big names would bring people to the High Street increasing what is known as footfall and this even had a ripple
• 06:00 - 06:30 effect down to the smaller independent stores because in your walk between deams and BHS you might go to a record store buy The Beatles You Might toddle on over to a greasy spoon Cafe and buy a fry up and so as this ecosystem grew and grew the Great British High Street in the' 60s and '70s was in its Heyday but much like in the Victorian era it too started to become a victim of its own success we then evolved to the growth of chain retailers and particularly the
• 06:30 - 07:00 supermarkets and their expansion but particularly out of town they took a lot of people away from The High Street from the ' 50s car ownership in the UK massively shut up you'd have the Ford angular the ca the voxal Viv and this was great for shopping because a car is effectively a portable shopping bag however with everyone now driving around these little mini sheds on Wheels where do they go [Music]
• 07:00 - 07:30 in 1956 someone took a bucket of yellow paint and put a single yellow line on the curbs of the West End out front of Chinese restaurants the entire British public looked at it and went what the piss is that they then slapped a secondary line by it and by 1960s we now have car parking fines and the csil started raking in cash from not only finding people but also charging fees to park and the general public was basically being shaken down for cash for daring to go to the high High Street but
• 07:30 - 08:00 you see it wouldn't be until 1976 where a decision would be made that would fundamentally change the High Street forever with the opening of the first ever outof Town shopping center Brent Cross it transformed shopping forever Everything Under One Roof a retail Revolution back then there was a John Lewis a Ratner and an Our price if you remember them we decided again to follow in America's footsteps as they' made shopping centers back in the
• 08:00 - 08:30 but ignoring the fact that America was kind of built for the car again very coercively but you know let's let's forget about that for now and so typically in America they would make these shopping centers on Long highways there would be sort of catering for the suburban area but England is not America you know mainly a lot of people were living in very urban areas with thriving Market towns and everything was built on top of each other and the big brim boys thought it'd be a good idea to just [ __ ] slap a massive shopping center with free parking in out of town locations and so you you know you can
• 08:30 - 09:00 guess what happened the High Street was now competing with these shopping centers you know you tell me like look at these two this is like a beautiful British High Street it's lovely architecture it's been around for many many years there's a story in every brick in every turn of the street there's a Vibe you know it's beautiful and then you have this thing just this hollow looking white portal with just mainstream shops that really could exist anywhere on Earth we
• 09:00 - 09:30 see in our society often culturally benefiting things like a beautiful High Street that supports a local economy will very often lose out to efficiency Tesco's 100th Superstore is their biggest in London and the latest Step Up market for the empire built on a pilot high sell it cheap Philosophy by the '90s the High Street was still thriving you know it was still doing very well but as more of these out of town shopping centers would pop up it did start to get harder for the High Street and you know cuz it's very hard to
• 09:30 - 10:00 compete with like these shopping centers had everything you could ever want Under One Roof on top of that and probably most importantly they would have ample parking because they were built with cars in mind unlike the High Street so you could literally park there fill your car up with beanie babies and pet rocks and drive home and because there was very big money behind these shopping centers they could purchase Prime locations with good access good Road Connections and so this trend of big retailers moving out of the High Street and moving out of town would be followed
• 10:00 - 10:30 with supermarkets doing the very same thing tesos ASAS saintsbury they would situate themselves just out of town with lots of parking often their car Parks were free and they wouldn't only sell food they would start to actually expand their product ranges they would sell clothing Electronics you know DVDs they would even have their own bakeries butchers cafes in these things and as you might expect this doesn't just have an impact on individual High Street retailers but it actually has a massive impact on the entire economy of a town
• 10:30 - 11:00 I'll give you an example right this town is very close to my heart it is called dunable originally a thriven beautiful Market Town look at this oh my goodness how quain now look at the poor bastard Jesus in 1975 they they created a Civic Center called Queen way Hall this thing was cool they would do like
• 11:00 - 11:30 fashion shows they would do big gigs apparently David Bowie played there and on top of that they would have Market Days where Market stools could situate themselves in the car park and it was a Vibe you know increased footfall to the town this location was 6 minutes from the center and it had ample parking it really would have been ideal it would have massively increased footfall in the area and it would basically have benefited everyone but then they decided to do something right in the 2000s they made a decision to knock it down and replace it with Asda and after they made this the whole town come together and
• 11:30 - 12:00 said this is a great idea you're fantastic we love it I'm jking obviously that was a joke they [ __ ] hated it if I had a pound for the amount of times I've heard the phrase Asda killed Dunstable I'd have at least like1 Asda basically swallowed up the entire local economy The Butchers the electronic shops The Bakers the small Grocers they now had to compete with this mega store that was six minutes away had free parking you could get a trolley to take all your goods in and put it straight into your car that was 30 seconds away had everything you need Under One Roof
• 12:00 - 12:30 they could price everything lower than the High Street what is the chance that a High Street could compete with AER and I use this example of Dall because it's it's really just a recurring story that happens all around Bruin also along with retail Parks which funnily enough Dunville also banged one of them just you know a couple minutes out of town again with free parking I guess they did it just to you know really make sure the High Street knew its place now look it's really important to actually understand just how much of
• 12:30 - 13:00 an impact supermarkets have on local economies and I think it's worth us just talking about how money Works a thing that really helped me to kind of wrap my head around the function of money is that the more times that money changes hands the greater the economic impact that that money has money can make people do things so let's do a really simple example a loaf of bread you want me to make you a loaf of bread and I say piss off mate I want to sit in bed and watch House of dragons you then take a shiny golden one pound and wiggle in front of my face and I go wow [ __ ] me a
• 13:00 - 13:30 pound yeah I'll have that here I'll make you some bread I'm making bread and then I take that pound and then I buy a newspaper and then the newspaper guy takes the pound and he buys a potato cuz it really reminds him of how his grandma used to look and he yeah really happy about that that single pound has made a whole bunch of people do a whole lot of things that otherwise they would just sit in bed and watch House of dragons that pound has inspired people to do mutually beneficial actions AKA work and then bear in mind that you'll take tax is from that you know that means more
• 13:30 - 14:00 infrastructure schools roads blah blah blah we're all one big happy family but here is the thing the big enchilada probably if the owner of the High Street brand lives in that local town and say their business sources products very locally and thus spends more money locally paying more taxes locally Etc this will create a lot of local value ultimately meaning less potholes in your road and less human feces in the streets but when you have a super ultra mega mega super Corporation such as Asda and
• 14:00 - 14:30 Asda owned by zubba and Masher Isa who you know apparently only paid 55 million in taxes in The Last 5 Years despite having 37.5 billion revenue and in two of those years they didn't pay any tax at all subba and mossen probably aren't spending a whole lot of time in the dunable quadrant when they're out shopping for their Mega Yachts I think this is really honestly important to understand because this is why a country can have a lot of money but if that money doesn't circulate around local economies it often times won't result in
• 14:30 - 15:00 an improved living standard and thus concludes my lesson on money by the 1990s and early 2000s the UK had embraced a more globalized service oriented economy this shift initially brought about economic growth and prosperity and the UK started to catch up with more productive economies like France Germany and the US by and large by the early 2000s the the British High Street was still thriving we had a lot of spending money we were doing quite well if you don't mind me saying so myself and so now we're buying you
• 15:00 - 15:30 know portable music players and seethrough PlayStation controllers and it was great we're all having fun the big business boys went sick let's [ __ ] open more stores let's keep opening stores and you know as their stores are growing they open more establishments everywhere their costs are also growing but that's fine I promise you because you know everything's going to stay the same but you know what if and I'm just throwing this out there just you know humor me what if a couple of lads wearing white color shirts you know little bit of a CO problem they stare at charts and their
• 15:30 - 16:00 computer all day what if they accidentally completely collapsed the entire global economy well that would obviously mean that people would have less money to spend but don't worry cuz that will never happen there's absolutely no way cuz everything's under control everywhere you look the color is red and no one it seems can stop the bleeding financial crash happens in 2008 the big High Street retailers panic and they obviously have to borrow a lot of money to pay off debts and some of those companies wouldn't be able to survive those debts Woolworths was one of the early boys to go they had to stop trading in 2015 rest in peace Willies
• 16:00 - 16:30 your pick ax was absolutely banging and this was like a staple of the British High Street and it was gone just like that I was a [ __ ] there we go that's better but you see due to big chains being able to borrow lots of money a lot of these chains were able to survive a fair bit of time after the crash but as expected the independent businesses they obviously were hit the worst many would struggle to survive given the dip in sales and like a sort of change in the the way that people's shop would occur
• 16:30 - 17:00 where people wouldn't really have the luxury to go to the nice family run butchers that have been around for 100 years they would instead go to Iceland and get some [ __ ] refrigerated chicken in the shape of dinosaurs and bang it with some ketchup and that's dinner tonight kids I'm sorry but what if I told you that once this was all happening every single item you could ever want to buy could be delivered straight to your door by just the simple click of a finger okay buddy let's not be silly now that one never bang the internet appears what is internet anywh Alison can you explain internet
• 17:00 - 17:30 is all right I I know my timeline's a bit [ __ ] up Amazon started trading in like 1994 but it was kind of more dramatic when I did it like that the financial crash really accelerated online shopping it pushed people to buying online because often it was cheaper online stores like Amazon and Asos they have far less overheads than High Street retailers they just need to own a warehouse rather than own a warehouse and a load of shops and expensive places paying rent paying energy costs employe and assistance Etc their cost were lower so they could take all of that cost and deduct it from the
• 17:30 - 18:00 cost of items making their items a lot cheaper and so slowly post financial crash a downward Trend would start to occur where less and less shops were opening and more and more shops were closing and so yeah small towns like Dunstable would just die they had like 43 boarded up shops at one point but along this prominade there are empty shops there's one here one here another one here there's one down there so the big question is can the town recover or will dunable die all the while the ASAS
• 18:00 - 18:30 the out of town shopping and the online shopping particularly they would just sweep up all the customers especially now that these customers were unfortunately poorer because of the financial crash they had less money to spend so they had to go to these big retailers who could outperform on price it's been a difficult year for retailers with casualties up and down the country small businesses have become increasingly rare on Britain's High Street so you know at some point after the financial crash everyone realizes we're in a [ __ ] crisis when it comes to the High Street and so all the
• 18:30 - 19:00 politicians went oh no there was a report from the British retail Consortium where they did a survey that asked many businesses why they had to go out of business 85% of them said that it was to do with crippling business rates business rates are a tax that are taken from businesses being performed in the premises these taxes have been in desperate need of reform for a very long time they're very outdated even Boris Johnson said that he wanted to reform business rates and he just you know got super busy and it just [ __ ] it
• 19:00 - 19:30 slipped his mind butr like business rates are extremely high it's kind of [ __ ] up and you can look them up online how much a business probably will pay in business rates but business rates converge with another problem that we have which is the British housing crisis the housing crisis as the name suggests not enough houses are being built to match the population that we have and so the conservative government of the time made some reforms to build it whereby they made it easier for Builders to convert retail spaces into Residential
• 19:30 - 20:00 Properties and the conservative government were very happy to do this because you know they really thought it was a great idea and also big building firms were like their fifth biggest donor and they threatened to pull out their donations but it's that's probably a coincidence simply to allow the conversion of shop premises into residential which could sound like a good idea I suppose in saf far as creating more homes that's obviously a good thing but if for every home that's created at the expense of a shop unit that effectively means that for every
• 20:00 - 20:30 home provider you will lose a news agent a hairdresses a shoe shop uh a sweet shop whatever it might be and when we consider the price of housing at the moment that it's skyrocketing and that physical retail is on a decline coupled with the fact that taxes for homes are much lower than taxes for businesses it creates somewhat of an incentive for developers to buy retail space or commercial facilities let them be empty for a while knock them down and then just build some high-rise flats and this was the point I was making earlier where
• 20:30 - 21:00 it doesn't matter about the cultural benefit of a thing a high-rise blocker Flats is much more profitable than having some old family pup aaa's getting paid first the lowest rated B is getting paid last taking on defaults first now obviously if you're buying bees you can make more money but they're a little risky if you were anything like me and you watched The Big Short and you were sat there completely [ __ ] Bamboozled like you didn't know what they were speaking a different
• 21:00 - 21:30 language debt loans bonds I don't know they just say all these words to kind of throw some smok of mirrors up at you I spent literally an hour on stream trying to understand what I'm about to tell you and lbo leverages the acquisition company's assets to obtain depth I understand the words individually but it's kind of complicated so in the late 2010s early 2020s we started to see many more of these large retailers dropping like flies and a lot of that was to do with a thing called an lbo a leveraged buyout what this is is an incredibly
• 21:30 - 22:00 highrisk and high reward way for private Equity firms to maximize their money Toys R Us closed in 2017 BHS closed in 2016 and deams in 2021 all of which were victims to leverage buyouts the company was bought by a Real Estate Investment Trust in two private Equity firms for $6.6 billion the sale was a leveraged buyout meaning it was financed largely by debt so how do I explain this right so you have a guy let's take sir Philip green for instance hey he wanders down to the bank and he asks for a small loan
• 22:00 - 22:30 of £200 million to buy out BHS and the bank says hey look we've got a cool option for you it's called an lbo basically you give us a small percentage of the cash I don't know like 10 million 20 million whatever and we'll do the rest we'll give you the 190 million if you need it Philip green goes o me likey that cuz that only cost me 10 million and what they do in this situation is basically use the assets of the company so bhs's assets that could be its warehouses or it retail location ations they use that as collateral that if they
• 22:30 - 23:00 can't afford to pay the debt the bank will seize those assets this means for just 10 million I am able to buy a major British firm but the problem here is that you know you've just bought a company that could be functioning completely fine and often they are but now you've just saddled it with £190 Million worth of debt that the company has to pay off at some point but that might be manageable you know if everything stays stable but if prices somehow rise because oh I don't know a
• 23:00 - 23:30 financial crash and massive inflation Etc the debt of that company now grows that can spiral out of control and now the debt is much bigger the amount that you have to pay back is much bigger and you know if you're sir Philip green and your family really desperately needs 1.2 billion worth of dividends so that you guys can buy like massive Yachts Etc instead of using that money to pay off the debt and then letting the company spiral out of control and then collapsing and having to sell it for1 so that you can avoid sort of paying out people's pensions well congratulations
• 23:30 - 24:00 you managed to collapse a perfectly viable business because of a dodgy deal and not actually because the function of the business itself so you know let's give a round of applause for lbos from this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction you must stay at home what I'm hoping you're starting to understand is that there wasn't any one single thing that killed the British High Street it was more like a death by a Thousand Cuts so with all we have in mind of what's just
• 24:00 - 24:30 happened imagine you then throw a pandemic at it forcibly closing many of the High Street stores but of course you know kind of benefiting the supermarkets that were allowed to stay open and just absorbed all of the trade and then we're all at home paid Furlow and we have money so we just start buying stuff online all of this just led to more and more little independent stores and even big stores closing on the High Street leading to a point where 2009 dunable looks like just a standard British High Street these days and death of the High Street which is as we talked about
• 24:30 - 25:00 earlier the heart of a local economy as that dies a place just unravels it degenerates there's less money locally so therefore there's less taxable money locally the the place gets run down it looks [ __ ] people get poorer more people live on the streets that leads to more people doing drugs more people getting involved in crime because they're very poor and then throw on top of this dumpster fire the fact that the Tory government cut funding to local councils by roughly about 26% per person this meant that not only When there's less money locally but the money that
• 25:00 - 25:30 would have came from central government is also being cut on high streets the grip of Corona virus is tightening measures to contain the health emergency choking off Britain's economy and like this is a global problem lots of places around the world are experiencing the exact same thing but they just respond to it differently the French government announced at some point that they wanted to tax online Giants basically to help preserve the town centers in France there's about three times more independent bookstores than there are in the UK and that's because the government introduce a minimum delivery charge for
• 25:30 - 26:00 book sellers so that The Independents can compete against Amazon but even in the way that the councilors talk they they warn about the dangers of quick Commerce they talk about how they can drain life from public spaces and create a more atomized Society a more distant disconnected Society in France they also do a thing where on Sunday mornings supermarkets can only open till midday and then the independence presumably can be open for the rest but you see in Britain we don't even like talk about that kind of thing you rarely hear people talking about the value of a High
• 26:00 - 26:30 Street and what it does to a local community a lot of talk about it dying if you look at a lot of the media they talk about it dying and I think it's dying it's transforming and it's the question is what it's transforming to and I think it's transforming from a place where people have bought stuff to a place where people do stuff personally I believe the high streak can and should evolve it can't be the same thing forever we can't just ban the internet and online shopping I like the idea of the experience economy like the center is just beautiful great architecture lovely looking place you go to a mixed
• 26:30 - 27:00 work area you buy some coffees you go to a little cafe maybe then you'll wander down to The Artisan places you go to butchers you get some local produce but you see in order for that kind of evolution to happen for the High Street to evolve it requires probably some policies that actually benefit the local Independents as opposed to multinational corporations and most importantly it requires us as people to have excess money in our pockets and more free time but when more and more people in this country are struggling from a cost living crisis they always going to opt
• 27:00 - 27:30 for convenience and cheaper prices of course they are over experience and luxury and so Amazon and all these online retailers will keep winning killing and crippling and profiting from the death of our high streets and so if we're ever to see a true Revival of the Great British High Street our country needs to fundamentally change its attitudes towards economy making money work for communities and not just shipping it overseas into tax safe havment and so I think there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel but there's different paths and
• 27:30 - 28:00 if we take the wrong path then I think we're just going to see more boarded up shops more homeless people and more soulless high-rise Flats Another Empty shop you know if you look at this street this morning about 11:30 a week before Christmas and it's dead I mean where is everyone I mean what what what's going to happen are they going to CU it can't go on like this if you enjoyed that video be sure to leave a like subscribe to the channel jump on the Discord we can continue this conversation I'll catch you in the next
• 28:00 - 28:30 one peace