Retail guru Professor Leigh Sparks has blamed decades of government policies for the decline of the high street - but warned people have to change their own behaviour too.
Giving his views as part of The Press and Journal's Fresh Start campaign to rejuvenate local economies, Prof Sparks said policies around decentralising, VAT and business rates had "run riot" and left fewer people coming into city centres.
He went on: “We’ve decided that we can lose a quarter of our channel of distribution and have it not pay any property tax, in reality,” he says.
“And at the same time, we can load the property tax onto the remaining businesses and still have a functioning system.
“If you go online, it’s cheaper, it’s easier. You go out of town, it’s cheaper, it’s easier to do.
“Now, we either accept that and stop complaining about town centres in any way at all, or we say, actually, we want to change this because it’s a decision we’ve made."
Read the full story in The Press and Journal.