Sir Terry Leahy: we must put the heart back into our high streets

He built Tesco into the UK’s biggest retailer, so Sir Terry Leahy has a few bright ideas for reinventing our high streets.

 

The high street has a hallowed place in the British psyche. The butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker are a fixture of our society, along with the whack of leather on willow, the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, the Last Night of the Proms. The high street is almost an institution, and many people believe it does not – and should not – change.

The reality, of course, is that no high street has ever fitted this Ealing Studios’ stereotype. They are always changing. Tesco was a product of that change. Now attacked for being “too big”, its critics ignore the fact that, like any other multinational retailer, it began life as a small business – a tiny market stall in the hurly-burly of the East End of London. Its rise to become one of the world’s largest retailers was not thanks to any law, edict or ministerial proclamation, but the consumer – you, and the millions of people like you.

And now you, and all your fellow consumers, are changing the high street again at a pace not seen for decades, if ever before. The banking crash and recession have squeezed budgets. People are having to work harder and longer to make ends meet.

We’ve been through recessions before, of course, but whereas in previous downturns you might have gone to shop at a discounter, or walked down the high street comparing prices, the chances are that today you turn on your computer or pick up your iPhone and browse online.

The digital revolution, turbocharged by austerity, has created a tornado that has uprooted even the most established brands such as Woolworths and Comet. According to one recent survey, the retail chains shut an average of 20 shops a day last year – and that’s not to mention those closed by small, independent shopkeepers.