High streets in crisis as ‘14 shops a day’ close down
HIGH street shops closed at a rate of around 14 a day in the first half of the year, while openings were down a third, a report suggests.
Retailers are battling the worst trading conditions for five years, with the growth of internet shopping and business rates blamed for the challenging climate.
The rise of ‘in-home leisure’ – people preferring to spend free time and entertain at home rather than go out – is also suspected of taking a bite out of earnings.
Italian restaurants including Jamie Oliver’s chain are said to have been particularly badly hit by the change, while retailers such as Toys R Us and Maplin have gone to the wall as more people shop online.
Ministers have been urged to take concerted action to help Britain’s beleaguered town centres, with experts warning the turmoil is ‘unlikely to abate.’
A study of 500 high streets by accountants PwC and the Local Data Company found 2,692 stores had vanished in the first six month of the year – roughly 14 a day.
The rate is similar to the same period in 2017, although there has been a dramatic fall in the number of openings year-on-year.
Compared with 2,342 shops opening their doors in the first six months of last year, there were 1,569 openings between January 1 and June 30.
In the first half of 2018, 134 shops opened and 192 closed across the North West, a net loss of 58 stores.
Only two town centres in the North West saw a positive net change in the first half of the year – Macclesfield and Lancaster. The towns with the most store closures were Blackpool, Carlisle, Leigh, Chester, Liverpool and Bolton.
Lisa Hooker, consumer markets leader at PwC, said: “Openings simply aren’t replacing the closures at a fast enough rate. The openings across ‘experiential’ chains, such as ice-cream parlours, beauty salons and vape shops, haven’t been enough to offset closures in the more traditional categories.”
High streets minister Jake Berry said the government had created a £675m fund to help high streets adapt, slashed business rates by a third for the majority of smaller businesses, and was creating a task force guided by shoe-repair chain boss Sir John Timpson to help.
Dr Gordon Fletcher, retail expert at the University of Salford Business School, said “There is hope. Manchester’s Northern Quarter, Crouch End, Hastings Old Town and others all show that there is a future for an independent, local and invigorating ‘offline’ high street, even if that experience must exist on the fringes of online and mainstream retail.”