Mary Portas: 'I'm not Saint Mary, but this is about understanding how people want to live' Is there anything in other specific criticisms of the pilots - for example that the money allocated hasn't been spent or, where it has, was used in one example to purchase a £1,600 Peppa Pig costume? "It hasn't all been brilliant," she replies, her tone measured but her eyes flashing. There's no two ways about it, but these are ordinary people doing their best. How about applauding the great stuff that has been done in pilot towns - market regeneration and new shop concepts? And how has it been working with the Government? Well, I'm grateful that my recommendations have got this far. All the reports on the high street before mine are sitting in filing cabinets. She was not involved in the selection of the Portas pilots, she says. That was her choice and due to the demands on her time. She runs her own eponymous retail and brand consultancy, in addition to her media work, and has three children - two older ones with ex-husband Graham and a seven-month-old son, Horatio, with her civil partner Melanie Rickey. "The biggest misconception about my review is that I'm being paid to do all of this,"" she continues. I don't want to come over all Saint Mary about it, but I'm not. This is what I do in my free time. She is frustrated in particular that one of her key recommendations hasn't been acted on. This would give the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, the power of "exceptional sign-off" that would enable him to block out-of-town supermarkets if sufficient numbers of local people oppose it. "Let me tell you about Sherborne in Dorset," she begins, suddenly all fired up. They currently face having an out-of-town Tesco forced on them that they don't want. There is a petition where 90 per cent of people have opposed it. They wrote to me for help and one weekend I packed the kids in the car and went down there. They're brilliant. I love the women of Sherborne. They're fighters. We should be supporting them. This isn't just about a high street. It is about social responsibility, thinking about the social and community impact of losing the high street, and listening to people saying how they want to live. Has she raised that case with Eric Pickles? "I'm still waiting," she replies diplomatically. So has she met him yet at all? It does seems extraordinary that the author of a review delivered to the Prime Minister, praised by the Government, and now the basis for its policy on the high street, has yet to meet the cabinet minister responsible for its implementation. She insists she has been fully occupied meeting others anxious to pick her brains on how to revive their own high streets. "I can't get on a train," she recounts, "without someone coming up to me and saying, 'Mary, can you help us?" I love their enthusiasm, their British spirit. Well, almost all. She was, she recalls with a smile, recently approached on a train by Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor. "He wanted me come to his constituency," she recalls, "and told me, 'we've done a deal with Asda to offer breast screening at the supermarket for local women."" One of the Portas recommendations was to bring more health care facilities on to the high street as part of a wider mix. So did she go? No, it was an out-of-town supermarket, and frankly the thought of going to Asda to get my boobs out didn't do it for me. Why not put it in the local chemist. Give people another reason to go to the high street. Portas is not, she stresses, anti-supermarket. No one said regeneration of high streets would be easy. It takes teamwork, with all stakeholders working to a common goal. So I'm delighted big businesses are taking social responsibility and becoming pillars of the community, giving invaluable support and advice as well as demonstrating good citizenship. Neither, she adds, is she anti-mouse. I see the internet as a good thing, but it's not social and we love that social interaction you don't get when you sit at home doing your shopping by clicking on a screen. We love to connect. Go to any street market and you'll see it. As she does when she returns to our TV screens next month with Mary, Queen of the High Street. Over three weeks, she will follow the fate of very different local communities (Bow in east London, Liskeard in Cornwall and Margate in Kent) as they fight to reverse the decline in their high streets. "This is not a makeover series," Portas says. What I am trying to do is bring some new thinking, share ideas that have worked elsewhere, and then see what happens. Making the programmes, she says, has only reinforced her belief in the viability of high streets. Slowly but surely there is a sea-change happening. People are finally waking up to what we will lose. It isn't just about shops. It's about social infrastructure. We need our high streets. Mary, Queen of the High Street begins on Channel 4 on May 7 at 9pm.