‘More shops will go’ in fresh low for high street

MORE businesses will disappear from Britain’s town centres this year than during the two years of the pandemic.

The stark warning comes from retail industry boss Andrew Goodacre who says all manner of high street enterprises are struggling with unprecedented operating costs while sales are falling due to a lack of consumer confidence.

Latest figures released by the Office of National Statistics on Friday showed retail sales fell by 1.3 per cent in March, and February sales figures were also down.

The UK’S Gross Domestic Product grew by just 0.1 per cent in February, compared with 0.7 per cent in January this year, suggesting the economy has been stalled by soaring inflation and cost of living rises. Mr Goodacre, CEO of the British Independent Retailers Association, said: “Just when we thought it could not get worse after coming out of Covid it has, which is hard for our members to bear.

“All of their operating costs, from supply to energy and wages are going up faster than sales are going up.

“If the cost of products go up these can be passed on to the consumer but it is very difficult to pass energy and wage rises on entirely, so retailers are taking smaller profit margins.”

Mr Goodacre added that some members were also struggling to be accepted for energy contracts as suppliers were deeming them too high risk to pay their bills.

He said: “I think this year we will see more businesses close than in the last two years and that is from across all sectors, not just retail.”

● Iceland yesterday became the latest supermarket to limit cooking oil sales to one bottle per customer, owing to shortages of sunflower oil from Ukraine.