Dame Mary of Specsavers is backing the British high street

Dame Mary Perkins said “people still like the community feel” in spite of the recession and the internet decimating many town centres.

Speaking after launching her new £600,000 store in Bradford today, she told The Yorkshire Post: “The high street, in a lot of places, is still with us.

“Okay the shops are changing, perhaps the big chains are moving out, but then you get cafes and small retailers moving in.

“People like to get to meet people and not everybody wants to motor miles to a big shopping centre to have their eyes tested. We are community-based opticians.”

Dame Mary said the Specsavers partnership enjoyed double-digit growth throughout the economic downturn by focusing on providing good value to customers. She added that turnover for 2013 will exceed £2bn, up from £1.7bn in 2012.

Dame Mary, who founded Specsavers with husband Doug in Guernsey in 1984, has been described in the national Press as Britain’s first female self-made billionaire, but she dismissed the title as purely notional as it is based on the perceived value of the business.

“But it’s not for sale and in a way it’s almost unsaleable because I have all these partners in all these stores and I’m sure they would say no,” she said.

“I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you if I had a billion to my name. I would be in the South of France somewhere.”

Dame Mary added: “I have still got one house. It is the same house I had four years before Specsavers started.

“I think that probably speaks for myself. I have no holiday home. I have no boat. I have had the same car for five years. I cycle to work sometimes if it’s not raining. People who know me laugh at that headline.”

On the issue of gender equality on business, she dismissed the need for quotas or targets and said “women are getting there anyway”.

Dame Mary said: “I’m not convinced that all women want to get through that so-called glass ceiling to be on the board of some public company.

“I’m never convinced with women I meet that that’s where they want to end up.”

She said young school girls interested in a career in business should have the confidence that boys have got. She argued that girls should be educated separately between the age of 11-16.

“I think girls lack the confidence to stick up their hand in class and answer the question and push themselves forward.

“The confident side has to come early on in school. Certainly when they have left school they need to know they can compete against the men and they are as good at if not better than the male section,” added Dame Mary, who turned 70 last month.