Hi Ivor,

I think ti's sad to see local businesses fail.

I think there are a few reasons why. One is that often businesses don't research the market enough before they start. Another is that they think they are in competition with the businesses that surround them when actually they need them to bring extra business to the area as a whole. We also need a strategy for our high streets. Once you used to go to a certain area for certain good. Books can be found at Charring Cross Road, Clocks in Clerkenwell, Electrical goods in Tottenhamcourt road, Furniture around Googe Street, Funky clothes and boutiques in Carnaby street, antiques in Portabello Road etc...

While some of these still survive as destinations for these types of goods, the supermarkets and superstores are the destinations out of town centres, from huge Ikea Stores to DFS from Curry's to Tesco From Dreams to Outlet stores, Matalan, TKMax etc.

In their wake lie the humble high street and no-one really knows what to do with them. They become a mish-mash of estate agents, fried chicken outlets, empty shops and pound shops all getting increasingly gaudy trying to 'stand out' from one another which actually has the opposite effect making our high streets look and feel like pretty depressing places to be.

As I said, I think it would be a great start to see someone in the council create a questionaire to find out how people view their local area, if they shop their, what they buy, how often, why they don't, where they go if they don't etc...and make this information available online to anyone who wanted to invest in the area, perhaps even produce a welcome pack for any potential investors and target the sort of investors an area needs rather than just filling empty shops.