Craft Focus - Apr/May (Issue 72)

88 How to succeed on the high street Dave Stallon, commercial director at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), talks about how small businesses can achieve success on the high street Problems facing high street businesses are well-documented. It seems like every week, headlines highlight the number of empty shops, retail job losses or another high-profile chains going out of business. Making up more than 99 per cent of all businesses across the UK, small firms are in the midst of this. These hardworking small retailers continue to report one of the lowest confidence levels of any sector, and up against spiralling business rates, high rents and online competition, it’s easy to see why this is the case. Expensive town centre parking charges and poor infrastructure are sending customers away from high streets to large out-of-town retailers, and the loss of bank branches and cash points from our high streets all add to the everyday challenges small firms come up against. Independent businesses are at the heart of our communities, providing jobs, bespoke products and a personal service, yet despite being key to the success of a town centre, many are finding it too difficult to stay afloat. However, we should not be resigned to defeat. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is campaigning to make changes to some of the barriers that small firms are facing. Of course, there won’t be one silver bullet to save the high street, but FSB’s ongoing campaigning on high streets – and the publication of our High Streets Hub last year – has demonstrated that there is much that can be done to alleviate the challenges. These include the burdens of tax, parking and planning policy. BUSINESS RATES BURDEN One of the largest burdens disproportionately affecting small firms is the outdated business rates system, which, with its roots in the Elizabethan poor laws, is stuck in the past. Its fundamental principle – that property value is a reasonable substitution for the wealth of the occupant – is no longer fit for purpose. A lot of businesses rent their spaces so don’t benefit when their shops and offices rise in value. Yet as rents continue to rise, they are still expected to pay increasing business rates. The tax is not linked in any way to fluctuations in trade or income. At the same time, multimillion-pound e-commerce giants operating out of remote warehouses are seeing their rates fall, demonstrating just how ludicrous this regressive system is. Over the long term, FSB is continuing to lobby for an overhaul of the unfair, regressive tax, which hits firms before they’ve had the chance to make their first pound of turnover, let alone profit. But with the overall bill expected to rise to more than £30 billion this year, more urgent relief is needed. At last autumn’s Budget, we welcomed the government’s pledge to cut business rates bills by one- third for retail properties with a rateable value of under £51,000. The two-year fund comes into play this April and will apply to the majority of independent retailers, as “If we can harness the digital potential of smal l f irms, we stand a real chance of creating more world-beating businesses and boosting gr owth..”