High street closures will mean the death of small-town Britain

Back in my hometown this week, far away from the capital, the main topic of conversation was the closure of the local Marks & Spencer.

There is now one mid-market brand, large store left in the high street and it’s difficult to see how Debenhams can survive. Then the once-bustling main thoroughfare, a magnet for shoppers far and wide, will be no more.

It will provide coffee shops, charity and discount outlets, but that is all. The specialist retailers have long gone, and now the multiples are following suit.

Those who went to M&S for their food and clothes will have to go elsewhere. There will soon be an M&S food-only branch almost 10 miles away. Some will journey there, but others will go to the Asda, Tesco, Morrison’s or Aldi dotted around the town’s outer roads.

People will carry on buying their provisions, so in that sense they will not suffer. But along with the jobs lost, there is now a gaping hole at the town’s very centre. The “doughnut”, so recognisable to anyone who has visited the conurbations of North America, has come to Britain.

I saw the same effect on a recent trip to Liverpool, where over two miles there was nothing except shops with grills pulled down or boards indicating they were shut. And, in the area where I live in southwest London, in the last week alone we’ve seen the disappearance of two longstanding restaurants, a pub and a convenience store.

Even though they are many miles apart, with very different demographics, what unites all three places is a collective failure – a failure of landlords to show enough flexibility when it comes to rental increases, a failure of councils to counter what was happening before their very eyes, and a failure of central government to address what is becoming a national crisis.

In my neighbourhood, a typical shop rent is £36,000 a year. That’s for small premises, with parking restrictions in operation outside, and before any item is sold or any member of staff or supplier is paid.

In these uncertain times, that is a huge commitment to have to make. If reports are correct, it’s being repeated up and down the land. Some property owners have taken rental holidays or not applied increases, but not enough. Some have chosen to invest in the future of the high street, believing prospering shops is ultimately for their benefit as landlords, that in the long run rents will rise if the area is doing well. Others, however, choose to can the retailers and turn over the space to the trend of the moment, be it student accommodation or shared working quarters – whatever is more likely to bring them greater immediate income.

Councils have made their own contributions to the doughnuts appearing everywhere, by not doing enough to make the shopping districts attractive destinations, by insisting on maintaining tight parking controls, and not refusing planning permissions to retailers wanting to build giant, away-from-the-centre stores.

Take my hometown: it’s isolated, but still has substantial population. Instead of telling companies that they could not relocate to the roundabout on the dual carriageway and would have to stay put on the high street, the council ran scared and caved in. Quite what prompted the fear, however, is a mystery. The townsfolk would still shop their brand where it was located – they were not in a position to go anywhere else.

The retailers insisted that if they did not get their way and go out of town they would pull out completely. This was nonsense. I would wager their sparkling new outlets still served exactly the same clientele as previously, and have not attracted many non-local customers. At no point did councils take a long-term view and worry about the impact this was having on their central shopping streets. Or if they did, it was far too late.

There are too many examples in Britain of councils being wooed by pretty pictures of low-slung modern buildings, complete with grass banking and flagpoles, and believing they offer the prospect of a better future. They’re not creating new jobs – not in sufficient numbers as to make a difference anyway. All they’re doing is seeing one company move from one part of town to another – and often they’re encouraged by the use of subsidies to make the switch.

Nationally, ministers have ignored the looming problem. They’ve got the ability to transform the business rates system but have done nothing. Similarly, they could impose a sales tax on online sellers and level the playing field between them and the traditional, bricks-and-mortar” retailers, but they haven’t.

It may be that a view has been taken, deep in Whitehall, that actually nothing can be done, that this is the expected result of a lifestyle shift brought about by the introduction of new technology. Certainly, the belief that Britain has simply too many shops, that some must perish, would be justified. That does not explain the disregard, though, for our high streets and town centres.

Something must be done – to prevent job losses on a scale that would dwarf anything we’ve seen in recent years in the City or what remains of manufacturing; to preserve life in our towns and cities; and stop them becoming eerie throwbacks to a bygone age. Action is required at all levels, and judging by what I’ve witnessed on my travels and where I live, it cannot come too soon.