Support For Reform Is Rising In Places With Most High Street Decline, Study Finds
High street decline could become a key electoral battleground at the next general election (Alamy)
3 min read
Support for Nigel Farage's Reform UK is particularly rising in areas that have seen the most acute high street decline in recent years, new research suggests.
Think tank Power To Change, which carried out the analysis, said its findings show that the Labour government "should be laser-focused on turning around declining high streets by the next election".
The research, published on Friday, looked at how areas with suffering high streets, measured by areas with the greatest increase in vacancy rates between 2015 and 2023, voted at the July general election and the 1 May local elections.
The think tank used previously collected data for its High Street Warning Lights analysis — a list of the places in England with the greatest increase in persistent high street vacancy rates between 2015 and 2023.
The vacancy rate is measured by the percentage of properties vacant for more than three years.
The analysis found that Reform was more likely to have come in second place in the general election in seats that have seen the greatest decline in the high street in recent years.
The party came second in 24 per cent of constituencies covered by the High Street Warning Lights indicator, compared to 14 per cent across the rest of the country, according to the research.
Overall, 29 of the places in the High Street Warning Lights areas held local elections earlier this month, across 14 county councils. Of these councils, Reform gained control of seven.
When combined with the party's performance at last year's general election (seats where Reform came first or second), it shows that Farage's party has an established or growing presence in 44 of the 100 High Street Warning Lights, across 39 parliamentary seats, the think tank said.
The report said the findings "suggest an association between rising support for Reform and the decline of the high street", predominantly in the Midlands and northern England.
While researchers admit that this growth of support in areas of high street decline could be seen as "broadly reflective of the jump in the party’s popularity in the polls in recent months", looking at the combination of the general and local election results "it is clear the party is enjoying an uptick in support in areas where the high street is in decline".
The report said: "Should this growth of support for Reform persist, this ‘Shuttered Front’ – which consists of 39 parliamentary constituencies, many of which were held or gained by the Labour government – could be a key electoral battleground at the next general election."
Nick Plumb, Director of Policy and Insight at Power to Change, said the analysis showed that "visible local decline, particularly on the high street, matters to people when they head to the polls".
"A government looking to shore up its electoral gains and respond to Reform UK’s rising popularity should be laser-focused on turning around declining high streets by the next election," he said.
The think tank would also like to see the introduction of a package of reforms to give communities more powers to transform their high streets.
The reforms "would offer an alternative to the shortcomings of the top-down, prescriptive approaches of the previous government’s Levelling Up programme for high street renewal,” according to Jessica Craig, Policy Manager at Power To Change.
Businesses on the high street have been battling a series of challenges in recent years, including rising costs, falling footfall and customers switching to online shopping. The coronavirus pandemic is seen to have exacerbated these trends.
More In Common polling for the think tank carried out last year showed that 73 per cent of respondents thought the state of their high street had worsened in recent years.
A previous study also suggested that local decline, particularly on the high street, was significantly associated with support for the UK Independence Party, formerly led by Farage, between 2009-2019.
