The high street needs to be age-friendly. Yep, you bet it does.

Great to see that Anchor has taken an interest in the problems caused to consumers and retailers by the mismatch between the way retail is delivered and the physiological needs of older consumers. Here are the main points from the report:

A quarter of older people feel shut out of the high street
60% of older people are concerned by the lack of seating in shopping areas
33% of older people would feel ashamed to ask for a seat in a public place
24% of older people are put off by self-checkout machines

I think we can take the next statement from the report with a pinch of salt but it was good at generating headlines in the UK media.

Older people’s charity, Anchor, is highlighting the dire need for the high street to reinvent itself as a new report predicts up to £4.5bn annual losses by 2030 as retailers fail to attract the grey pound.

Definitely worth reading the report entitled ‘Older generations to rescue the high street’ but I don’t think it will tell you much you don’t know if you follow the work that Kim Walker and I have done in creating tools to help retailers address the issues of the ageing senses, bodies and minds of the most important group of high street shoppers. If you haven’t been following our work you can check it out here. Dick Stroud