UK high streets shed 140k jobs this year with more to come – study
Market towns are the beating heart of rural England. That is why this is such a disappointing story. We’ve had lots of celebrity and one off responses to the issue of retail decline but no major substantive thinking about it. Some of this stems from the fact that in economic development terms we don’t value retail as something worth funding. I blame Napoleon’s quip that Britain was a nation of “shopkeepers” a criticism we never seem to have got over. Until we do something serious to address this challenge I fear our problems will continue.
The Towns Fund has introduced the prospect of a huge and welcome allocation of new funding for towns but the three core programmes at its heart, urban regeneration, skills and connectivity have very little direct link to retail and will require some innovative thinking if they are to support it.
My gut reaction is that I fear in 2021 we will be having the same discussion about the slow death of town based retail as we are today on the cusp of 2020! This story tells us:
UK high streets have shed more than 140,000 jobs this year as store closures and retail failures made 2019 one of the most challenging years in a generation.
More than 2,750 jobs were lost every week, according to a detailed analysis by the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) published today. It predicts the picture will worsen in 2020, unless the government intervenes, with high business rates one of the factors blamed for accelerating chain store closures.
Prof Joshua Bamfield, the CRR’s director, said retail was in crisis owing to high costs, low levels of profitability and sales moving online.
“These problems are felt by most businesses operating from physical stores in high streets or shopping malls,” Bamfield said. “The low growth in consumer spending since 2015 has meant that the growth in online sales has come at the expense of the high street.”