Exclusive: Report says restricting cars and freeing up pavement space could be a cheap way to entice shoppers

The long decline of the high street is a problem that has gripped British governments for years. But what if there was a solution no one had considered before – doing it all on the cheap?

Spending less money is, admittedly, just one element of a report led by the urban thinktank Create Streets. But it does argue that rather than multimillion-pound revamps, a better answer could be smaller changes aimed at making town and city centres more appealing.