Can our high streets be rescued from terminal decline? Earlier this year a survey of 365 retail centres by Colliers International found that 83 were in a downward spiral and a further 42 were said to be degenerating.

Of the remainder, one third were stable and a quarter were thriving, but only three were improving. The reality of a prolonged squeeze on consumer spending, coupled with the continued growth of internet shopping, will drive more high streets into decline.

The familiar symptoms include vacant shops, falling rents and a general air of neglect. Yet no two centres are alike. Each has its own history, social characteristics and mix of businesses. A classic top-down, one-size-fits-all response is unrealistic. Although local authorities have been accorded a key role in town centre regeneration by the new National Planning framework, the reductions in their own spending may well make it harder for them to achieve much on the ground. If any kind of renaissance is going to happen, it must be locally inspired and driven by people with a personal stake in its success.

Some useful lessons, however, can be drawn from the continuing popularity of retail parks and shopping malls. No high street can be revived unless consumers see one or more compelling reasons to spend time and money there. In some cases they could be reinvented as places where people can socialise, be entertained and do business but only if there is easy, convenient access for users, whether on foot, by public transport or private car, in an environment that is safe, secure and clean. Above all, the businesses themselves will need to offer something unique to their location, something that the multiples either don’t do well or don’t do at all. What this should be is entirely down to local enterprise.

In some centres entrepreneurs will come up with a convincing response but in others confidence is too low and the remaining retailers are too preoccupied with their own survival to support a recovery plan. While BIDs have turned out to be a popular and reasonably effective initiative, they were launched in a relatively benign economic era.

We now need something more radical, preferably aimed at small businesses and start-ups who find themselves encumbered by a thicket of job-killing regulation. The Red Tape Challenge has much to do.

Kevin Hawkins is an independent retail consultant