Was great to attend the first quarterly session of the BPF Futures High Street Adaptation Working Group on Tuesday to discuss policy solutions to the challenges facing the high street.  Three key points / issues from the session were:

• The high street of the future will contain a more diverse range of uses than at present e.g. student accommodation, health centres, residential etc.  Can the Use Classes Order be reformed to facilitate this?
• Local councils could consider greater use of their compulsory purchase orders to address the problem of fragmented land ownership;
• Given that business rates are the largest occupational cost faced by many tenants, should there be more frequent revaluations?

Looking forward to discussing the above further and other ideas at the next session.