Re: Hmmmm
Well.
Councils have more involvement that just parking, they also screw real shops in the high street with additional taxes. Unless your a charity shop or estate agents which are encouraged to take high street locations by virtue of being tax exempt. No idea why on either, but it explains why we have 6 charity shops, 8 estate agents and only 5? actual shops.
The main issue though is simply that frankly a lot of high street shops don't actually deserve to survive. In order to survive, bricks and mortar shops really need to be able to win on at least one of the following:-
1) Price
2) Quality
3) Speed of Delivery
4) Service
Our local butchers (for instance) richly deserved to die, because they failed in every area. Their quality was worse than the local supermarkets, they charged more and the staff weren't helpful. The butchers van that turns up on the market is surviving and will continue to survive because you can get either better prices or better quality than the supermarkets, depending on what you pick.
The local electronics shop that sells white goods survives because they stock a smallish range of good quality equipment, but keep them all in stock so if somebody walks in and wants one then they can offer to stick it in their car then and there, or deliver within the hour in their van for a small additional charge. This business survived despite being ten minutes away from a Comet superstore. Comets failed most of these, and have now died out.
The high street clothes shop has been around for 150+ years, and continues to survive despite being within a 2 minute walk of major chain stores, and an ASDA with a clothing section. They manage this and are doing pretty well because they recognise that quite a lot of men despise clothes shopping and offer better quality than average clothes at a not unreasonable price. That, and they have genuinely helpful staff who can quickly take your measurements, show you which clothes actually suit you and where they are in the store, so you can be in and out in mere minutes.
Competing against internet shops is not radically more difficult than competing against another brick and mortar store. All it does is kill off stores that can't adapt to offer what customers want and are willing to pay for, and that has been happening for much longer than the internet has been around. Lack of adaption and a total absense of business planning is the problem, not internet shops.