Only local councils can save our city centres

Anybody who has been around North America will be familiar with the fact that there are few city centres as we know them. The only businesses apparent in what would normally be the city centre are office block after office block interspersed with service industries feeding or supplying those who work in the office blocks. By and large they are soulless places.

Several decades ago retail outlets moved to out-of-town locations close to major highway junctions and residential areas where scale was possible and parking and access was much easier. The same thing happened across the UK, Ireland, and Europe to varying degrees.

The issue has become so acute that several UK local authorities have recently raised the issue of penalising the retailer who moves out of town to try to ensure that more businesses relocate in the city centre area in an effort to revitalise those areas.