00:02across Merseyside a short journey can reveal two very different high street stories. Liverpool
00:09still draws shoppers visitors and investment into the city centre. Across the river Wirral
00:15council says Birkenhead's main shopping centre has been in decline for a decade with the growth
00:22of online retail contributing to significant vacancy. The council has approved moving Birkenhead
00:29market into the former TJ Hughes building as part of a wider regeneration. That tells us something
00:36important. Saving a high street is no longer just about filling every empty unit with another shop
00:42it's about giving people a reason to come into town. The office for national statistics says 28.8% of
00:50retail spending was online in august 2026. For shoppers that can mean lower prices, easy comparison
00:58and delivery to the door. For physical retailers it means rent, wages, energy bills and stock costs
01:04have to be covered by fewer visits. We want lively town centres but every click can make that harder
01:11to sustain often enough to keep businesses there for the long term and support local jobs as well.
01:17We've been talking about the decline of the high street for years it seems to me. When we're talking
01:22about the online retailers and of course I don't have to mention who they are. They have the ability
01:27to sort of bulk buy but of course they don't have sort of shops it's it's done by clicks rather
01:31than
01:31bricks. There is no doubt of course that sort of vacant premises they sort of look unsightly and it
01:35becomes slightly hostile places if um to sort of people want to go in so what you've got to do
01:41is
01:41make them more attractive. Now of course that's to do with sort of spending money by the sort of
01:45local authority primarily although we have sort of groups such as business improvement districts and
01:50they sort of put money into making the sort of the environment more pleasant. But of course you've got to
01:55still attract people to want to go in there and if it's not so for shopping and I do think
01:59that
01:59there will always be some high street presence although it's it's continues to be in decline
02:04it's about sort of the things that we want to do to sort of meet up. So it's about leisure,
02:08health perhaps, we sort of know that sort of gyms and the sort of like you've got to sort of
02:12have
02:13the sort of the if you like a multi-agency approach but of course it always requires money
02:17and once sort of retailers vacate those premises don't let them go into decline because of course
02:22it makes it all more difficult to bring them back to sort of to a proper usage. In England the
02:26government says it's trying to make high streets more competitive. From April 2026 qualifying retail,
02:33hospitality and leisure properties moved on to lower business rate multipliers while councils can use
02:40high street rental auctions to bring long empty premises back into use. In September 2026 ministers
02:48announced a £210 million package aimed at derelict buildings, struggling businesses and community
02:54ownership. The test is whether that investment changes how people spend.
