Give high streets a 3 year business rates holiday before they disappear completely

Eight empty shops on our high street. Eight.

A town that used to have a butchers, a greengrocers, two bookshops and a Woolworths. Now its charity shops, vape shops, and boards in windows.

The problem is simple. An independent bookshop pays the same rates per square metre as Amazon pays for a warehouse in the middle of nowhere and that is a market distortion so blatant that even the most committed free marketeer should be embarrassed by it. Business rates were designed for an era when commerce happened in buildings on streets and the tax base needs to reflect the fact that a huge chunk of it now happens in sheds off motorway junctions. Give all independent high street businesses with fewer than 10 employees a complete business rates holiday for three years. Let them breathe. If the high street dies its not coming back.