Mary Portas warns regeneration of high streets will take years

Updated
Royal Ascot - Day 2
Royal Ascot - Day 2



Mary Portas has said the regeneration of British high streets "will take years" because too much is being expected of local councils.

Portas, the broadcaster and retail consultant who in 2011 was tasked with leading a review into the future of British high streets, said the criticism she received for her time in politics was the first time she had "anything negative written about me".

%VIRTUAL-ArticleSidebar-council-stories%"Regeneration will take years," she told the Telegraph. "It is such a big issue, involving real policy changes around rates, planning, parking. Central Government is trying to put all the onus on local councils, but they have nothing in their pots.

"If you have money that needs to go either into social care or into giving a rent rebate to shops, then where is the council going to put it?"

Few of her report's recommendations have come to fruition, and she admitted there was a change in the public perception of her after her work with the Government.

"I remember going to Whitehall for the first time, saying, 'Surely they have done reports like mine before?' They said, 'Oh, yeah - see all those filing cabinets? Full of them.'

"I thought, the last place I want to end up is the back of a filing cabinet. Little did I know I was going to end up on the front page of all the newspapers.

"If you go into politics, you are game. Before the report, I do not think I had ever had anything negative written about me, not once. You have to be so careful or people will stop putting their heads above the parapet. The moment you do not do something brilliant, well ... "

Portas, who lives with her partner Melanie Rickey in north London, said huge strides have been taken with regard to gay rights in the UK, but said there is still a long way to go.

"There is still a huge job to be done in this country, let alone anywhere else," she said. "Occasionally I have an awkward moment at a dinner, sitting next to a man who asks 'and what does your husband do?', but we have come a huge way. It is just fantastic.

"Ten years ago when my children were young, 'you're gay' was the worst thing you could say in the playground."



Mary Portas Outlines Her Vision for the Future of UK High Streets
Mary Portas Outlines Her Vision for the Future of UK High Streets

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