Throughout 2020 and 2021 #Covid and its #economic impact has driven more and more of us online and away from #shopping in person. Yes, we can now hunt for the lowest price and even get it delivered to our doorsteps in record time, but the truth is it’s mostly a boring experience. There’s no interaction with other human beings. It’s completely impersonal. I don’t finish my online shop and then have a coffee with a friend or meet up with a member of my family to have lunch in a nearby café. There’s no window shopping. I visit as few online shops as possible and try to get it over and done with quickly. In short, my #shopping experience has been dumbed down. Meanwhile, my #highstreet had become terminally ill with a record number of #storeclosures. 

Let’s look at the facts. It is fair to say that bricks and mortar retailing in the UK has been in decline since the financial crisis of 2008 if not before. More shops have been closing than opening since 2016 – long before Covid. #Deloitte has forecast a further 30,000 net store closures by the end of this year, which should send alarm bells ringing in Whitehall. According to Deloitte, over 1400 retailers have entered administration since 2010 – many in the last two years. (https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/consumer-business/articles/what-next-for-the-high-street.html). Indeed, #TheLocalDataCompany (LDC) report in 2021 suggested that one store closed every hour in the UK last year and 190,000 #retailjobs were lost in the first six months of 2021 alone. Worryingly, this rate appears to be accelerating and our government appears to be doing nothing about this.  

Ben Damesh

restoreourhighstreets.com

https://www.change.org/p/create-a-nationwide-regeneration-plan-run-by-an-independent-regeneration-tsar-a567df12-c46e-4c67-8f5a-8b1a4e623f8a