High streets to receive £150m cash boost amid mass UK store closures (Image: Getty)
High streets with boarded-up shop fronts and a lack of essentials such as butchers, grocers and bakeries will be given a multi-million-pound boost from the Government. The newly announced £150million cash injection will target the areas hit hardest by mass store closures.
The support forms part of Labour’s « path to renewal » with the aim of helping « turn the tide » on the decline of the high street. It comes despite the party significantly increasing business costs in the previous two autumn Budgets. In 2025, around 25 major high street brands and banks shuttered hundreds of branches, and this trend is expected to continue in 2026. Many have attributed closures to affordability issues following hikes in business rates, the minimum wage, and National Insurance.
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The move comes despite Labour significantly increasing business costs during the last two Autumn Budgets. (Image: Getty)
Communities Secretary Steve Reed said: « Our high streets are the beating heart of Britain — where communities come together and local businesses can grow.
« Town centres have suffered from high streets falling into decline, and that is why we’re taking action to turn the tide with this crucial investment and more to come.
« We have listened to what people are telling us, and that’s why we’re giving them the power and control to breathe new life back into our high streets and restore the sense of pride communities feel, building on our transformational Pride in Place programme. »
The first step in the Government’s upcoming ‘High Streets Strategy’ will be to bring people back into their local high streets by supporting local, independent businesses, improving neglected shopfronts and opening up empty units.
The strategy will build on the action already taken through its ‘Pride in Place’ programme, which aims to empower councils in England to say no to new betting shops and vape stores, support more than 1,000 local pubs that provide extra services for their communities and rejuvenate « over 330 of the most deprived areas ».
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Other steps to help « rejuvenate » the high street include plans to introduce a new community right-to-buy through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in an effort to give local people « greater power to save valued community assets such as sports clubs and pubs ».
The Government will also end ‘pub deserts’ by banning the loss of the last community facility in an area. Action will also be taken to tackle the proliferation of betting shops on high streets.
More details on the High Streets Strategy, including how funding will be allocated to specific places, will be announced in the coming months.
Small business owners and leaders have bemoaned the investment as barely scratching the surface. Jess Magill, co-founder at Woodbury Salterton-based Powderkeg Brewery, said the funding is simply not enough.
She said: « While it’s great that the Government is recognising the problem, the level of funding is not going to be anywhere near enough. With business rate hikes, the Government is taking away with one hand and throwing crumbs back with the other. Our local town has a shopping centre owned by a private property firm who are happy to let units stand empty in their dated, run-down retail properties.
« Many other towns have the same problem, where locals have no agency to change things. Add to this that people are being squeezed left, right, and centre, and we’re going to need a lot more to solve this problem.
« We see shops, pubs and restaurants closing all the time, businesses that would have been viable seven years ago are failing now and it’s through no fault of the people running them. »
Clive Bonny, managing director at Strategic Management Partners, said: “The UK has 325,000 small independent high street retailers according to UK Government stats, most of whom struggle to stay alive. So £140 million equals £461 per retailer.
« Can we please see the plan to identify who will be receiving this support, how it will be spent and the forecast Return on Investment (ROI) rather than the fancy headline budget?”
Rohit Parmar-Mistry, founder at Burton-on-Trent-based Pattrn Data, added: « This initiative is a trivial sticking plaster on a gaping economic wound.
« £150 million across the entire UK is a rounding error that barely scratches the surface of the problem. You can paint a shop front, renovate a sign, and open a community hub, but if the local people have zero disposable income, that business will fail. Simple as that. »
