News

No charity shop cap, but independents are top priority, in Portas high street review

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 13 Dec 2011

Proposals to limit the number of charity shops claiming rate relief have been ditched from the Mary Portas review on the future of high streets, a move that has been met with delight by the charity shops umbrella body.

The Charity Retail Association has welcomed the Portas Review, commissioned by Prime Minister David Cameron, which makes no recommendations specifically targeting charity shops.  Instead, celebrity retail expert Mary Portas focuses on diversifying the high street through a number of initiatives designed to attract new, and particularly independent, retailers into shop sites around the country.

Warren Alexander, chief executive of the CRA, told civilsociety.co.uk: “We’re delighted that the earlier comments that that they were going include a cap on the number of charity shops that can get rate relief is not a recommendation.”

Favourable treatment of charity shops

Yet Portas, who was commissioned to do the review earlier this year, still registered some criticism at the leg-up charity shops are given in terms of rate relief.

“I think start-ups should be the number one priority when it comes to giving [rate] discounts. The business rate discounts that charity shops enjoy builds a disadvantage into the system that is causing a problem," she writes.

"Landlords are choosing the safe option of charity shops and small new retailers aren’t getting a look-in. There will be no growth and innovation now or in the future if we don’t address this.”

But Alexander said that the CRA also “welcomes and supports” the recommendation that local councils be enabled to give rate relief to new, independent retailers to set up shop. “We’re more than happy with moves to encourage independents to open up on high streets and fill up empty spaces,” he said.

“Charity retailers, like any other retailers, are very keen on seeing busy and diverse high streets, and there are clearly a number of recommendations in the report that are looking to achieve that.”

Alexander said that the report, on the whole, showed support for the place of charity shops in the retail mix.

“There has been a realisation that charity shops play a positive role in the high street, they are important to be there, they’re already taking empty units that would otherwise remain empty, and they’re good professional retailers adding value to the high street.”

Today the British Heart Foundation opened up its 700th store nationwide, becoming the largest charity retailer in the country. The charity retail sector has been buoyed by the recession, according to the Charity Shops Survey, produced by Charity Finance, which this year found profits for the sector up by 12 per cent, to reach £153.1m. It was the third consecutive year that charity shops reported a profit increase in this annual tracking survey.

Read the Portas Review in full here. 

Tweet

Directory: British Heart Foundation | Charity Retail Association
Who's Who: Warren Alexander