Shopping & Local Economy
High Streets • Farm Shops • Free Parking • Fair Rates
Cooperative Retail • Market Protection • Post Offices
The Principle
High streets are dying because supermarkets killed them, not because people stopped wanting to shop locally. Out-of-town retail parks, online monopolies, parking charges, and a business rate system that punishes physical shops while letting Amazon pay less corporation tax than a bookshop pays in rates — these are policy choices that destroyed the local economy. BUILD will reverse them.
Pillar 1: High Street Revival
1.1 — Free Parking
Free parking in all town centres for visits of up to two hours. Parking charges are a tax on local shopping. They punish consumers for choosing the high street over Amazon. They will be abolished for short stays, with local authorities compensated through central funding.
1.2 — Business Rate Reform
Business rates will be reformed to equalise the tax burden between physical shops and online retailers. A bookshop on the high street should not pay more in business rates than Amazon pays in corporation tax. The playing field will be levelled through a digital sales levy on online retailers that funds rate relief for physical shops.
1.3 — Empty Shop Penalties
Commercial landlords who leave high street properties vacant for more than six months will face escalating charges. Leaving a shop empty while waiting for a more profitable tenant is speculation that damages the community. Use it or lose it. After 12 months of vacancy, the local authority gains the power to compulsorily let the property at a fair market rate.
1.4 — Protect Essential Services
Post offices, banks, and essential services will be protected from closure in communities where they serve as the last provider. A town without a post office or a bank is a town that has been abandoned by the institutions that should serve it. The last branch cannot close without providing an equivalent replacement service.
Pillar 2: Farm Shops, Markets, and Direct Sales
2.1 — Simplified Regulation
Farm shops and farmers’ markets connect producers directly to consumers. They eliminate the middleman, give farmers a fair price, and keep money circulating in the local economy. The current regulatory regime imposes compliance costs designed for multinational retailers on sole traders selling eggs from a trestle table. Regulation will be proportionate to the scale and risk of the operation.
2.2 — Rate Relief
Business rate relief for farm shops, butchers, bakers, greengrocers, and other independent food retailers. These businesses provide essential services and community value that supermarkets do not. They should not be taxed out of existence.
2.3 — Market Protection
Planning protection for market squares, high street pitches, and established farmers’ market locations. Developers will not be permitted to build over or obstruct traditional market sites. Markets are community infrastructure. They are not redevelopment opportunities.
Pillar 3: Cooperative and Community Retail
BUILD will actively support the establishment of cooperative shops, community-owned stores, and buying groups in areas underserved by retail. Where a community has lost its last shop, BUILD will provide start-up funding and business support for community-owned alternatives. Community shops across the UK have a survival rate far higher than conventional independent retail, and they keep money and decision-making in the community rather than extracting it to distant shareholders.
Community pubs will receive the same support. The pub is not just a business. It is the social infrastructure of the village. When the last pub closes, the community loses its meeting place, its gathering point, and a significant part of its identity. Community ownership preserves it.
Pillar 4: Supermarket Accountability
The full detail on supermarket reform is in the Food Charter (Pillar 7). The local economy relevance is this: supermarkets must stock a minimum proportion of locally produced goods where available. A supermarket in Kent should be selling Kent apples. Local sourcing requirements are linked to the Regional Farmer Alliances, creating a direct supply chain from local farms to local shelves. The money stays in the community instead of being extracted to a corporate headquarters.
The two-tier loyalty pricing ban (Life, Liberty & Freedom Charter, Pillar 3.1) also protects local shops: a customer who refuses a Clubcard should not pay 40% more than one who hands over their data. When the price penalty disappears, the supermarket’s artificial advantage over the local shop narrows.
The high street is not dead. It was killed by policy choices that favoured supermarkets, punished parking, and let Amazon pay less tax than a corner shop. BUILD will reverse every one of those choices.
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BUILD UK
builduk.club
August 2026
Download this charter as a document (.docx) — the paper as written. What follows is the same text, readable.