Confidence in our cities won’t return overnight

The launch of the High Street Fund to support small retailers affected by the riots is a welcome initiative. It is not just good but right that the banks and industry support retailers in getting back on their feet.

They recognise just how severe the damage has been to small businesses, many of which didn’t have insurance. £3m isn’t a huge sum in the scheme of things, but it’s an important gesture and the money will make a real difference independents. It was not just small retailers that were affected – this week the BRC revealed that among just 16 of its members, 899 stores and more than 11,000 staff were affected.

Not that you’d know it if you were to listen to our politicians and media. There almost seems to be a conspiracy to forget that the week of mayhem ever happened, and we’re already seeing the tough talk and tough sentences starting to be watered down.

But there is a crisis of confidence about those cities affected by the riots. One upmarket London retailer – whose store is nowhere near any of the riot-hit locations – said that visitors from out-of-town and overseas have been put off visiting London by the images of violence and arson. London can’t afford this weekend’s Notting Hill Carnival to be anything less than a peaceful success.

Local projects over the past week such as free tram travel into Manchester and Croydon won’t have done any harm. But a concerted marketing effort over a long period of time is needed to demonstrate that our cities are open for business and safe. And we need zero-tolerance protection of stores and shoppers to continue to give everyone confidence to return.

Great walls of grocery

It shows the pace of change in retail that last month when Tesco demonstrated a virtual wall in a Korean subway station where shoppers could order products for delivery, we all gasped with amazement. This week Ocado was launching a similar concept for real, at a pop-up in London.

At the moment it’s a bit of fun, albeit an impressive one that will help to build Ocado’s profile. But make no mistake, the underlying trend is towards a convergence of channels to enable shoppers to do business with retailers in whichever way is most convenient for them. What seems outlandish today will seem the norm in the future, and much sooner than we expect.