IT’S RETAILING
Tory promise fails to save struggling high street, says Labour
A TORY pledge to protect the ailing high street lies in tatters as more big-name shops disappear, putting nearly 500,000 jobs at risk.
Its 2019 manifesto promise took another battering this week as fashion chain Ted Baker is on the brink of collapse, endangering almost 1,000 jobs.
In 14 years of Conservative rule, 586 chains have plunged into administration, affecting 29,959 stores and 460,038 staff, say experts at the Centre for Retail Research.
Some 12,500 jobs were lost in the first two months of 2024.
And among the household names to vanish from the high street are Debenhams, Oddbins, Ethel Austin, Comet, Past Times and BHS. Fast-fashion retailer Peacocks went into administration in 2020 and was saved in a buy-out, but shut more than 200 of its 400 branches.
Yet even this week PM Rishi Sunak crowed in Prime Minister’s Questions about “our plan for towns helping to regenerate the local high street”.
Shadow Business Minister Justin Madders said: “The Tories have allowed our high streets to become decimated and seem unable to stop its continued disintegration. Rather than levelling up the country, large parts have gone backwards under this Government.”
When homeware chain Wilko ran out of cash last year, Business Minister Kevin Hollinrake said the British high street was not “dead” but “reshaping itself ”.
Centre for Retail
Research’s Prof Joshua Bamfield said the minimum wage increase will hit retailers who face record-high costs.
He said: “It is easy for the Government to increase other people’s wages when it does not pay the bill.”
He said retailers are furious business rates are rising 6.7%; and without a balancing of tax between shops and online business, more stores will shut. A Government spokesman said: “Revitalising high streets is a major part of our levelling up agenda.” He said it had announced a £1.5billion Long-Term Plan for Towns and a business rates support package, worth £4.3bn over five years, to help businesses.