The High Street is a mixed success - how come?

What is your take on the parking? was the gist of the question.

My anwer took a step back. The problem is a wider one of the decline of the high street. Our high streets – the beating hearts of most of our communities - are faced with unprecedented, existential threats.

* From the internet – Britain in the number one online shopping market, I heard on the radio today! We buy more online, and expect better service and lower prices than anywhere else.

* From the supermarkets, which make sure they carry all the lines the other shops in the area carry and then discount them with coupons and offers;

* From the big chains who come in and are able to out-price the independents (eg over rent) and cut their prices through cross-subsidy helped by the fact that many, like Starbucks, they don’t pay their taxes.

* They are also subject to the most ruthless and unregulated property market in Europe, where leases are punishingly restrictive. I’ve seen shop-keepers in tears feeling trapped by leases they can’t escape except by declaring bankruptcy.

* In the face of all of the odds stacked against them -  what do they find? That their local council has gone and undermined them further by making parking expensive and risky.

And Barnet has absolutely disgraced itself in this regard; found at judicial review to be in breach of the law by using parking as a cash-cow.

So what to do?

I will let the other parties run their dutch auction on whether we would have 15 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour free parking near the high streets.

I am pretty clear that the high street - especially the small independent businesses who are capable of making our high streets pleasant, friendly, and welcoming - deserve our support.

I went on to outline Green Party policies designed to help the high streets. As the party that believes small [business] is beautiful, and that local is best we have all sorts of measures we could consult traders and landlords on, from reducing VAT on cooked food, regulating the property market, to changing planning laws...

But the interesting irony is that just up the road from North Finchley, Whetstone High Street - subject to the same pressures and useless local council as North Finchley - has been declared the healthiest high street in London! http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/revealed-londons-unhealthiest-high-streets-whitechapel-tops-capitals-list-of-shame-10134903.html

What does Whetstone have? Just from looking I can see: Beautiful, wide pavements on which pedestrians can walk at leisure; mature trees on both pavements that separate the shopper from the Great North Road that bifurcates our high streets; a beautiful Green Walk just to the west; and some of the wealthiest demographic in London resident on both sides of the road.

It behoves anyone who wants to rule over us to tell us what they think they can do to bestow the advantages enjoyed by the rich onto all our high streets, don't you agree?

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