Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Professional horse whipper claims she can squeeze a couple more miles out of lame horse
Fears grow over the future of 5,500 high street shops
One of the UK's largest property companies has drawn up a confidential list of struggling retailers amid fears that more than 5,500 shops in Britain could be handed back to landlords or closed within months. The scenario highlights the troubles facing Britain's high streets on the eve of a Government-commissioned report by Mary Portas which will be released on Tuesday. Miss Portas issues a grave warning about the health of the high street when she unveils her report alongside the Prime Minister. She will suggest a series of remedies including a National Market Day to promote street markets, a loosening of regulations on night-time deliveries, and town centres providing more free car parking.
Posted by general congreve @ 01:14 AM (3423 views)
14 thoughts on “Professional horse whipper claims she can squeeze a couple more miles out of lame horse”
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mark says:
miss portas talks crap she promotes and works with some of the largest retailers why would she want the small ones to survive
she is only looking after herself she doesn’t care about the corner shop or the local butcher
nickb says:
How come the pundits never mention the blindingly obvious? If you talk to a struggling butcher, baker or other barely surviving shopkeeper for 2 minutes they will tell you The Rent is Too Damn High.
N
paranoia blue says:
and so are the rates
mark says:
yup nick also the local supermarket rarely pays rates as they negotiate with the local council they wont pay for x number of years if they create employment, then as with a large one near me after the 10 years was up they moved the store and negotiated a new deal with the council, there is no way on this planet would the council negotiate with a small company it could stamp on with its tinpot leaders and workers
fubar says:
This dingbat has been paid good money by Call Me Dave for this. I heard or read the phrase “commissioned by the government” for how much? In other news, dog-sh1t doesn’t taste nice.
mark wadsworth says:
Paranoia, rates are a fixed percentage of rents charged, so seeing as there is a fixed upper limit on total rent + rates, there is no such concept as “too high”, unless of coures, landlords engage in masochistic behaviour of leaving premises vacant, which can easily be fixed by upping the business rates even further and applying them to all commercial sites, that way landlords won’t be able to afford to leave premises empty, end of discussion. Further, out of all the taxes which businesses pay, Business Rates are barely a tenth, why is everybody so mesmerised by them?
Mark, yes as we well know, supermarkets are exempt from VAT, corp tax, PAYE and Business Rates and are regularly paid huge sums of money by grateful local councils. Apparently some councillors even offer the services of their wives and daughters to supermarket executives. And the total turnover of your most hated, Tesco, is £30 billion a year, which is barely half of the interest MARGIN which UK banks are currently earning.
general congreve says:
The truth is in a free market we wouldn;t have anywhere near the number of empty shops. Commercial property prices and therefore rents being too high is the problem.
In a free market, without someone paying rent, a commercial property owner would either, set the rent progressively lower, until someone rented the premises in the believe they could afford to pay the rent and make an operating profit trading from the premises, or the owner, mortgaged up to the hilt would go bust, the property would be foreclosed on, sold to the highest bidder at a new lower market rate and therefore rented out at a lower market rate to a trader that found he could still make a profit at that rent rate.
Unfortunately, the BoE cannot let commercial property prices fall, because the owners, mainly banks, investment funds and pension funds, would go under, sinking the financial system. So it is Zombie high streets by order of the BoE with lots of QE to keep the heads of the banks and funds above water.
mark wadsworth says:
GC, excellent explanation, that’s what it all boils down to. LVT would knock all this on the head (which is just simplifed Business Rates, really).
paranoia blue says:
MW @ 6
Thanks for that.
Is that also the case in Scotland?
Also, how does that work out if one owns the property?
mark says:
damn i could have the councillors wife for investing – getting in car now heading to council offices
MW i am serious about reduced or zero rates Asda have done it a few times in our local area
mark wadsworth says:
Paranoia, How do you mean if you “own” the property? Nobody ever paid the full price/value for the leasehold of commercial premises, because at the time you bought it there was a liability to pay business rates. So really, you own 70% of it and pay rent (i.e. Business Rates) on the other 30%.
AFAIAA, the system is exactly the same in all four nations of the UK. As a historial aside, Business Rates is the oldest national tax we have, was inroduced as Poor Rates by Queen Elizabeth 1, it was a tax on land/buildings, the sole aim of which was to fund a very basic welfare system for those excluded from owning land. Thus she was a Georgist nearly two hundred years before Tom Paine, who was in turn a Georgist a century before the actual Henry George.
general congreve says:
@8 – Knew you were going to say that! You’re as bad as me, I think we should join force and start up our own website:
WadsworthandCongreve’sLVTandGoldasMoneycanfixanyproblem.co.uk
paranoia blue says:
MW @11
OK Thanks,
However, north of the border, our property situation is different re: ownership. ATB
mark wadsworth says:
Paranoia, can you explain that last comment?
If a site is liable to BR, then it’s purchase price is depressed accordingly. If you buy it, the price is about 30% lower than what it would be in the absence of BR. So to then later say “Oh that’s not fair, they’re taxing my property” is nonsense, because you never paid for it. It’s like part rent/part buy. Or owning your car outright but paying tax on the petrol when you use public roads – that’s part buy (the car) and part rent (the fuel duty is a kind of road user cahrge).
This is economics and not land law and this is all no different in Scotland.
GC, fair point, you knew I would say it – but do you think this way yourself yet? It’s all blindingly obvious to me.