Britain’s changing high street

Britain’s high street appears to be still in decline, suffering from the recession and the increase in shopping online.

Building societies, pawnbrokers, and clothing shops for men and for women are vanishing from the nation’s high streets.

Taking their places are American restaurants, discount stores, coffee shops and betting parlours.

More than one in 10 building societies closed in the first half of 2014, according to accountancy firm PwC and the Local Data Company (LDC), making a total of 96 lost.

The study found that 3,003 shops closed in 500 UK town centres in just the first six months of this year. This works out to 16 every day.

While this figure was lower than the first half of 2013 when 3,366 shops closed, there were far fewer other businesses filling the vacancies.

The collapse of retailers such as La Senza and Phones 4U contributed to the situation, while that of Blockbuster meant that all video rental shops disappeared altogether.

Pawnbrokers, who had enjoyed a rapid rise when the financial crisis began, closed 48 shops, a drop of 7%. Many, such as Albemarle & Bond, struggled as a result of the fall in gold prices and regulatory pressure on payday loans.

In addition, 47 mobile phone shops closed and 43 mens-only clothes shops shut, which also represented a decline of 7%.

Filling some of the empty shops were 7.7% more American restaurants, 4% more discount stores, 3% more cafes, and 2.5% more betting shops.

PwC’s Mike Jervis said that the changes are part of the digital revolution and consequent change in customer behaviour. Online sales “far outstrips store sales growth for most retailers”.

Advances in smartphone and other mobile technology, it predicted, will accelerate the situation.

"We're heading for a high street based around immediate consumption of food, goods and services or distress or convenience purchases. I'm not sure that's what customers really want, but consumer and business economics are pointing in that direction at the moment."

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