WHAT a bleak week for Britain’s high streets! In just a few days household names Jessops, HMV and Blockbuster have gone to the wall, calling in administrators and putting thousands of jobs at risk.

There is a sea change taking place on our high streets and it will take some radical thinking to find solutions to the problems engulfing some retailers.

Some of that radical thinking has to come from the public sector.

Quite rightly, it is not the role of local authorities to spend taxpayers’ money on shoring up failing private sector businesses.

But it is the role of local councils in particular to seek out ways to breathe new life into the town and city centres that have been the traditional heartbeat of the areas they serve.

Our campaign to persuade Newport City Council to reverse its decision to end free parking at its city centre car parks has won plenty of support with more than 5,000 people signing our petition.

But it has also attracted plenty of criticism. That’s fair enough. We do not expect everyone to share our opinion and those who do not agree with our campaign have every right to express their views.

We have never suggested free parking is a cure for Newport city centre’s woes. But it is an additional incentive for shoppers to use the city centre and it does, at least, provide a sticking plaster solution while a longer-term cure is sought.

Marks and Spencer closed its city centre store yesterday. We are aware of at least three other stores near it that will be putting up the closed signs within weeks.

If the administrators decide to close HMV’s stores then that will be another gaping hole in the middle of Newport’s city centre.

Some brave, off-the-wall ideas are needed to support the city centre (and the rest of Britain’s high streets) before it becomes beyond saving.

Yes, times have changed and the internet means some traditional retailers have simply had their day. That is what some might call progress.

I would probably say it is simple business evolution with only the strongest surviving.

Two years ago the UK government commissioned Mary Portas to produce a blueprint for the future of the nation’s high street.

Her solutions were radical and accepted, to an extent, that the traditional high street dominated by brand-name retailers was dead.

There is no sign of her vision being adopted in Newport city centre or any of the other high streets in Gwent.

Some traditional high street retailers will always survive, others will do so by adapting and changing with the times.

But there are some that have simply been overtaken by changing times and tastes. And the challenge for all interested parties is to find a way of plugging the gaps left by these stores.

To do so we need a forum of local private and public sectors big-hitters prepared to think the unthinkable and come up with radically different ideas that will prepare Newport for a post-Friars Walk future in which big-name stores are in shopping malls and out-of-town sites but not on the high street.

I do not have the solution to the high street’s woes, but I remain convinced there is one.