The theory runs like this: if you demolish enough of a town centre, the government will eventually pay to rebuild it. Michael Heseltine proved it in the eighties with Liverpool. A generation of regeneration consultants have been proving it ever since, though the results have varied.
The rebuilt high street is almost always nicer than the one it replaced. It is also almost always for someone else. The independent shops that gave the original high street its character cannot afford the rents in the regenerated version. What arrives in their place is a Pret, a Sweaty Betty, and seventeen apartments marketed as urban living.
Heseltine’s original insight was political rather than economic. Decay is embarrassing. Regeneration produces ribbon-cuttings. Ministers like ribbon-cuttings. This has not changed.