BRITAIN’S town centres are in trouble. Outside of densely populated urban areas, once thriving shopping centres have suffered years of decline.

The first to flounder were small towns like Bishop Auckland, where traders moved to new purpose-built edge of town sites with free parking, but in the past couple of years we have seen signs of retail atrophy spreading to larger towns such as Darlington.

The Government has done nothing substantive to help. Appointing Mary Portas as a so-called “high street tsar” was a pointless publicity stunt.

However, the impending shake-up in business rates should give the North-East’s town centres a genuine shot in the arm.

According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, businesses in the North-East will see an average cut of more than ten per cent. At the same time, the average bill in London is set to increase by 11 per cent.

The increase in London’s bills should be no surprise – its property market has consistently outperformed the rest of the country by a handsome margin for many years – but the figures show how dependent the Government is on London for tax revenues that help fund services throughout the rest of England.

To ease the pain, the Government will offer transitional payments to businesses in the South by phasing in rate reductions in the North. This means our region will not see the full financial benefit of the shake-up for five years.

We should spare a thought, too, for local authorities which will see a fall in rates revenue, albeit not immediately because the Government will redistribute funds in the first year or two. For now, though, the business rate shake-up looks set to give our High Streets a much-needed fillip, and that is something we should all be grateful for.