Recommendation 50

Retail and local businesses are central to high streets, as demonstrated by the first formal definition by the Ordnance Survey defining a high street as “a minimum of 15 retail units within 150 metres of each other”. 97 This definition emphasises the key role that businesses and, by extension, business owners have on the high street. Even those such as Mr Rudlin, who suggested that a focus purely on retail is too narrow a definition, acknowledged that the purpose of a high street is to serve a community including through retail and businesses. 98