You can't put housing there, it will harm our business!

That we’re all buying more online, less from the High Street, is clearly and obviously true. What gets done about it is the interesting point to consider. Not this:

Signatories of a letter seen by The Times argue that the proposed policy to reverse the decline of high streets “risks putting the long-term health of our town centres at risk for the sake of a short-term stimulus”.

“Putting ground floor housing in a random and uncontrolled manner within high streets does not draw footfall, does not support new businesses, reduces the potential for business growth and will undermine the viability of existing retail, cultural, and commercial activities,” the letter states.

Those who run retail on the High Street are claiming that housing there will diminish their business. This could well be true as well. And yet:

The option to convert shops to higher-value residential uses would have negative consequences such as removing convenience stores from local neighbourhoods, it added.

The claim is then made that other landlords - and the society as a whole - must be poorer in order to protect their businesses. For moving an asset from a lower to a higher valued use is the very definition of wealth creation. Preventing it is making us poorer than we need be.

This is nothing less than an insistence that we be poorer so that they be richer. Now that this is clarified what we do about it is obvious. Allow the conversions of course.