I did notice in the article and I quote "Mr Hughes founded Allsports in 1977 and grew it to a chain of 260 with a turnover of £180m. It was bought by JD Sports in 2005”.............. It does NOT mention that allsports FAILED and went in to administration in 2005 and over 2000 people lost their jobs!!!! Will Mr Hughes please give some “REAL RETAIL" recommendations??? Im sure his experience can turn every struggling high street round!?!?!?!

Simon Fisher

Mary Portas is one voice. She happens to be very well-known and is therefore accepted by many people as being the voice of God on this subject. Her superficial grasp of key issues was illustrated live on BBC radio more than a year ago when she declared that the introduction of the smell of fresh bread into supermarkets was in some way cheating because "none of the supermarkets make their own bread on the premises" - within seconds the phone lines were lit up with calls from supermarkets correcting her. Apart from that, the noise made over this expensive research by Mary Portas, is dwarfed by the insignificance of the money allocated to put things right. What was the point?

Martyn Cowsill

Given that online shopping is cheaper and more convenient for many people and that out of town shopping centres offer free and easy parking, town centres are experiencing a nasty pinch. One of the things they have to do is make themselves different and to offer something which the online and out of town retailers cannot offer - a good quality street market is one way of doing this. The bottom line, however, is that there are too many shops in town centres whose offer is now increasingly irrelevant against the onslaught of online shopping.

Rob Barklamb

At least Mary Portas put forward suggestions about how to breathe life back in to our high streets. Mr Hughes has shown how he really does not have a clue. He whinges about the suggestions yet does not once tell what he would suggest. As for his whinge about the markets idea he shows how out of touch he is with customer behaviour. A good vibrant buzz on a market street is a sure fire way to get people in to a town and then it is up to shops to entice customers in. But a dead high street can only be a bad thing for all businesses.

Jonathan Fletcher