Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:33 pm on 6 March 2019.
Thank you for that answer, Minister. Sir John Timpson, chairman of the Timpson chain, has said that making town centres more friendly to motorists will stop the rot of the high street. He doesn't subscribe to the simplistic assumption that the death of the high street is down to online retail—'You can't get keys cut online', he says—but it's largely down to motorists preferring to go somewhere they can easily access by car. That's why Timpson says 40 per cent of their trade is done out of town, and that's expected to rise to 70 per cent over the next 10 years. A couple of years ago, Timpson opened 95 new shops, shops that provide services not available to buy online, and yet only four of the new stores were on high streets—the rest being in or near out-of-town supermarkets. This is because, he says, local authorities are killing off the high street by making shopping inconvenient to the motorist. Increased trade on high streets leads to improved employment levels and increased business rates for local authorities. So, will you pledge to help fund de-pedestrianisation in dying town centres across Wales?