Shutting up shop
As more retailers face crisis, experts demand help for failing businesses
BUSTLING family-run shops once dominated the old Potteries town of Burslem, now part of Stoke-on-Trent.
These days nearly a THIRD of its stores are boarded up – the worst vacancy rate in the UK.
In its 18th century heyday, it was the home of Josiah Wedgwood’s first factory. But since the closure of big ceramics firms like Royal Doulton in the 1990s its decline has been rapid.
From once-thriving Victorian and Georgian stores to modern post-war outlets, many are boarded up. NatWest and Boots went recently. Lloyds, the town’s last bank, is next.
Many independent traders, from newsagents, cafes and travel agents, to tailors, greengrocers and jewellers, have given up the ghost. Surviving businesses, which open on limited days, blame the lack of free parking.
BLAME
Convenience store owner Amit Patel said: “There are double yellow lines everywhere.” Yet Stoke’s council believes retailers can be wooed back to the Staffordshire city by spending £10million developing brownfield sites for 1,100 new homes, increasing footfall.
The former wool town of Dewsbury, West Yorks, has the country’s second worst vacancy rate at 29 per cent.
Mark Royrke, 45, who has run a shooting and fishing tackle shop since 1966, said: “You wouldn’t believe the change. I take a wage if I can but some weeks it’s not possible.” He blames a lack of council investment.
Florist Angela Walker, 52, says anti-social behaviour is also keeping people away. “Elderly customers who have always used the market don’t feel safe,” she said. “I’m worried about what the future holds.” BRITAIN’S boarded-up high streets are turning vast urban areas into ghost towns – with more shop closures ahead, warn retail experts.
The rapid growth of online shopping, coupled with crippling business rates and rent rises, has already cut a swathe through hundreds of town centres.
As retailers struggle, the closure of pubs, police stations and bank branches has only added to the air of desolation.
The warning of more casualties follows the collapse of Toys R Us and Maplin Electronics, which has put more than 5,500 jobs at risk.
Italian restaurant chain Prezzo, which has about 4,500 staff, is closing nearly a third of its outlets in a rescue bid.
And other big retailers like New Look, House of Fraser and Debenhams, face an uncertain future. Independent retail analyst Richard Hyman says 2018 is shaping up as the most brutal year for the retail industry in recent memory.
He said: “This year has already eclipsed 2017, the toughest retail year the industry has seen. And each year for the past five years or so has been getting more challenging.”
ANXIOUS
He believes there will be more closure announcements as chains struggle to meet rent and rate demands.
Mr Hyman said: “It’s only weeks before Quarter Day, when most retailers pay rent, and a lot of finance directors will be increasingly anxious.
“More closures are inevitable.” He said that many retailers are “in denial” over changing shopping habits. “They take customers for granted,” said Mr Hyman. “Around 15 years ago retail spending online was pretty much zero. Now it’s well over £50billion a year.
“Most of that has been cannibalised from shops.”
The sorry state of our high streets is nowhere more evident than in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, named as the country’s worst performing town.
Nearly a third of its shops are empty, three times the national average, says research by the Local Data Company. Second worst is Dewsbury, West Yorks, at 29.1 per cent and Newport, South Wales, at 27.2. Mr Hyman added that a weak economy, frozen wages and the rising cost of living –on top of the increase in shopping centres and retail parks, and the rise of the internet– had fuelled the crisis on our high streets. He also blames councils for using high streets as “cash cows” with exorbitant parking charges and soaring business rates. More than 55,000 shops are expected to face inflationbusting rate rises in April. Mike Cherry, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said the amount councils rake in from business rates will rise by 3.5 per cent to £25billion. He said: “Too many small shops in pockets of the country are facing insurmountable bills. This tax is now changing the face of the high street.”
The increase in annual online spending in the past 15 years