Christmas markets aren’t enough to save our high street retailers

Tis the season to be jolly... unless, it seems, you’re a traditional high-street retailer. This is the busiest time of the year for our shopkeepers, the period when they bring in more than the other months combined. In which case, you can but fear for them.

A weekend afternoon tour of Kingston upon Thames, one of our main shopping centres – its landmark stores, back in the day, serving the whole of Surrey and southwest London – revealed a worrying picture.

Three large outlets were busy, with queues of customers. They were TK Maxx, the clothing and furnishings discounter, Primark, the budget fashion seller, and the Apple Store. Another was doing a notably brisk trade and that was Waterstones bookshop.

The rest mostly had one or two people in; Marks & Spencer’s food section was seeing a steady procession of customers but the rest of the store was eerily quiet, as were the two department stores, Fenwick (previously Bentalls) and John Lewis. This, in the countdown to Christmas.

These were the open shops. There were many that were vacant, shuttered, some in the main drag and others in the side streets. In between, there were nail parlours, hairdressers and charity shops, estate agents and the occasional pop-up. And eating places, lots and lots of them.

Every sort of cuisine known to man appeared to be available in this suburban corner of Greater London. There was Japanese, Korean, Indian, Chinese, American, Turkish, Lebanese, Australian, Italian, British (fish and chips), French, Mexican, Vietnamese and more. In the historic marketplace, the square was given over to a “German Christmas market”. Cue sausages, lager, chocolate and gift stalls.

None of it was an advert for healthy diets but that was not the point: generally, all the food suppliers were rammed. All the outdoor tables were taken with people picking at takeaway cartons with wooden forks and chopsticks. The bins were overflowing with discarded containers.

It was a sight, however, that invited the unavoidable comparison: between the gorging crowds and the forlorn-looking, non-food shops. The idea of the town centre managers is to create an “experience”. There were also buskers in designated areas, belting out their stuff, and some fairground rides and the ubiquitous carol singers. They and the market were all part of a plan to entice people into the middle of Kingston, to give them a good time, feed them and get them to spend their money.

It’s a scene being repeated all over Britain, in our high streets and shopping malls. Every retail zone it seems is nothing without a German or a French or a local farmers’ market, and numerous fast food joints.

The difficulty, at least on the evidence I saw, is that it’s not enough. People were happily parting with their cash and brandishing their plastic cards in return for food and drink, but they were ignoring the shops around them. Or at least, they didn’t seem to be entering the shops in sufficient numbers and spending – not in the quantity to yield a thumping profit I would imagine.

Far more must be done if our high streets are to be saved. Planners speak airily of creating “community” spaces, bringing culture, the arts and entertainment to our town centres. Kingston has just acquired a new cinema, showing arthouse films. It looks good on paper, is undoubtedly an adornment, a facility to go with an existing theatre and multiplex, but will the availability of reclining seats and Dolby surround sound make any difference to the nearby struggling retailers? It’s hard to see how.

If the objective is to attract people, to get them into our town centres and make the streets appear busy, that’s one thing. As a policy it appears to be working. But if it’s to get them to provide a lift to the actual shops, there is still much to be done.

In Kingston, it was evident to me just how few people were carrying branded carrier bags. They’d come in, have a snack or a meal and a few drinks, before heading home.

The government cannot rest on its laurels here and assume that because our retail districts seem to be buzzing – perhaps back to how they were pre-pandemic – the business climate is good and promising. Based on what I saw, it’s not.

In the last few weeks, Joules, the clothing chain, has collapsed which required it to be rescued from administration by Next and founder Tom Joule. Wilko, the 400-store hardware seller, is talking to its advisers about an emergency loan. Superdry, the once seemingly super strong, could do no wrong, fashion retailer, must refinance a bank loan by January.

Of course, this is against a backdrop of doubling household energy bills and soaring costs of food and household goods. Shopkeepers are also having to contend with climbing labour rates and transport prices, let alone their own increasing lighting and heating bills. At night, many shops are now in darkness rather than devote even more money towards keeping them lit.

These are all affecting current trading but it’s the long-term strategy that rankles. Given the hundreds of thousands who work in retail, it’s essential that Rishi Sunak and his government do more. They must move to level the playing field between bricks and mortar and online. It means providing genuine assistance.

They could start by removing VAT for international visitors. That would give an immediate fillip to London and other tourist destinations. Stop tinkering with business rates and replace the arcane system with one that is simpler and affordable. Introduce an online sales tax.

Something must be done. German markets, street food and art cinemas alone are not the answer.