Business leaders warned the government’s plans to save the high street were descending into chaos this week after it emerged a major government contract due to be awarded last month to oversee the work of the Mary Portas Review in nearly 400 towns across Britain has been delayed.

In December the Department for Communities and Local Government pledged £1.25m – on top of the £100,000 apiece already awarded to the pilot areas - to support town planners overseeing the 27 pilots and town teams in another 330 areas.

The proposed grant is said to have attracted a “frenzy of activity” from town planners and not-for-profit organisations over Christmas and was due to kick in at the beginning of this month but the government admitted it is unable to give a firm date for when it would award the contract.

The successful bidder was due to have produced an “emerging findings” report by April, which the government had said would set out “what the pilots have done, identify common issues and how they have tackled the barriers”

Figures close to the situation have claimed one of the reason for the delay is the huge disparity of the work undertaken by the pilots, with some having made good progress but others having  spent almost nothing of the £100,000 awarded and yet to make any concrete progress.

“What’s emerged is that many of the areas have actually spend very little of the £100,000,” said one source involved in the pilots. “There have been teething problems including concerns over corporate governance.

“There is also a huge disparity in the work, with some areas having gone a lot further than others so there was a concern that having a formal audit-style report may not have been worth the paper it was written on.”

But the delay has increased claims among leading town centre figures that the government has mishandled the work of the pilots, especially with figures last week from the Local Data Company showing more than 35,000 shops were empty on the High Street.

The government gave a further £10,000 each to the 370 town teams who were unsuccessful in a YouTube bid to become Portas pilots but sources say financial backing being provided to town planners and high street experts supporting the work in both the pilot areas and town team locations dried up weeks ago.

Another figure involved in the bidding for the grant added: “All of us in the industry are all scratching our heads and saying how we got into this mess. Although we have a vested interest in this process part of me hopes they might just scrap the whole thing and start again it’s such a shambles.”

The revelations come with a new Future High Streets Forum being launched by the government earlier this month, including major retailers Tesco and Boots.

A spokesperson for Boots, which is chairing the group, said: “We think the government has realised that we have to tackle the key issues that were raised in the Portas Review. There has been some good progress locally but there are big issues facing town centres which urgently need the government to work with businesses and provide strong central policies on areas such as the operating costs to businesses and bringing investment into the high street. Town centre planning is not going to be the way forward.”

A DCLG spokeswoman said: “The government is absolutely committed to working with towns to revive their high streets.  Our decision to appoint a support team attracted an excellent response. We are determined that the organisation selected to take on this important work is the right one and we will be announcing the successful bidder in the coming weeks. 

The retail sector, business, local authorities and communities all have a vested interest in supporting our high streets and the challenge for everyone involved is to use the support and funding available to make things happen on the ground.

Many towns are already showing what is possible, from Nelson bringing empty shops back into use, to Market Rasen backing an award-winning local market, and we want to see positive action being taken by every town centre team.”

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