British town Walsall pays dearly for UK retail crisis

WALSALL: With its deserted streets and closed shops, the centre of Walsall bears witness to Britain’s retail crisis that political parties campaigning for election have vowed to fix. It’s difficult not to be struck by the multitude of “to let” signs on unoccupied shop fronts in the town in central England, near Britain’s second-largest city Birmingham. One of the few to resist the slew of closures is Poundland, a UK-wide chain selling items mostly for £1 or less. “All the big stores have

gone and have been replaced by rubbish stores to be honest,” said passer-by Susan Humphreys on a freezing day in November.

“I do go online a lot more now,” the 70-year-old told AFP. The retail crisis hitting Walsall and its 270,000 inhabitants is mirrored across the UK. No sector has been spared as independent shops and department stores struggle to survive faced with fierce online competition, notably from Amazon. Shops are also suffering from higher business taxes and wider political uncertainties caused by Britain’s stalled departure from the EU that the December 12 vote could resolve.

“Areas like Walsall which have suffered from decades of industrial decline, the impact of the change in retail has had a

disproportionate impact,” noted Simon Tranter, head of regeneration and development at Walsall Council. The result is that many locals struggle to make ends meet, with child poverty and child mortality rates well above the national average.

Walsall’s two parliamentary constituencies have historically both been represented by Labor but Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives narrowly won Walsall North in 2017. The area meanwhile voted 68 percent in favor of Brexit. Johnson has said part of the reason for the “leave” vote in 2016 was that struggling towns up and down the country felt they been “overlooked and left behind”. Both the Tories and Labor have pledged to lessen taxes for businesses should they win the upcoming election. —AFP