There are few certainties in politics and economics, but two of them were made clear by Grant Shapps, the former housing minister who was replaced in the recent cabinet reshuffle.

First, there are some politicians who make better chairs than portfolio ministers. And second, offering £10,000 to every "town team" requested by their local MP will have minimal influence on the long-term future vitality of our high street, with local government left to pick up and make something of the pieces.

After a significant amount of activity since the 2011 Portas review, the government's national funding legacy for no high street left behind included:

• 27 Portas pilot town teams, each receiving £100,000.

• Up to 392 other town teams (unsuccessful Portas applicants) each receiving £10,000 if their local MP makes an application before 16 September 2012.

• 100 local authorities, most with several town centres, who each received £100,000 from the high street innovation fund.

• The launch of a rather loosely-defined £1m future high street competition, for which applications need to be register by 6 December 2012.

• £1m allocated for the development of high street neighbourhood plans.

The immediate challenge for local authorities is to make sense of these overlapping and ad hoc opportunities. They must support the enthusiasm of genuine town teams to undertake productive and purposeful activity while also managing expectations.

Overall, these commitments amount to less than co-operative department store John Lewis spent refurbishing its branch in Cheadle. The risk of this type of extreme fragmentation of funding is a lot of sound and fury, signifying very little in terms of high street performance. It risks distracting local authorities with local rivalries and egos – already colourfully demonstrated by the implosion of the Margate Portas pilot team.

These short-term schemes are a huge headache given the scale of long-term challenges facing our high streets, and the policy response has been quite unhelpful. After all, government rejected the Portas recommendations for all out of town retail planning applications to be subject to special ministerial approval. They also rejected "affordability quotients" for new shopping developments, vigorous action to tackle empty retail properties, and incentives to develop the reach and scale of business improvement districts (Bids).

Local authorities ambitious to revitalise their town centres need to ensure their local plans prioritise its success. They need public, private and community-based partnerships to focus on the town centre, possibly co-funded through a Bid. They need coherent and distinctive branding that projects the qualities of places and their functions in the wider urban area.

To be fair, the government has helped town centres to find assistance from the Association of Town Centre Management. It is also encouraging town teams to network and share experience.

None of this, however, is anywhere near as important as local government's community leadership, strategic, enabling and partnership roles in town centre success. Shapps may have been able to leave high streets behind and ply his talents with coalition cabinet colleagues and the Tory faithful but it remains to be seen what route new housing minister Mark Prisk will take.

For local government, though, the hard work of town centre reinvention has just begun.

David Marlow is director of Third Life Economics and a former local government chief executive

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