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A bleak look at the old, dead High Street from @DeborahSuggRyan - a High Street that can't imagine anything other than the same old thing coming back after the pandemic. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000s1s8
The reason lots of the High Street has failed is - because it wasn't very good any more. Debenhams were dull, BHS was awful, even Woolworth's was pretty rubbish by the end.
And this coincided with a natural wastage - the generation who were young when they opened shops during the retail boom of the 1960s-1980s reached retirement.
Look at that huge growth in retail - it was never sustainable.
Look at that huge growth in retail - it was never sustainable.
But as I've said for years (to paraphrase Dougald) - the end of the High Street as we know it is not the end of the High Street.
We are seeing a rise in good retailers - great bookshops, indie record stores, quality grocers, new bakers. Shops that look so good you want to shop.
We are seeing a rise in good retailers - great bookshops, indie record stores, quality grocers, new bakers. Shops that look so good you want to shop.
And finally, we're seeing what some say is a reinvention - new making spaces. Pottery workshops, sewing studios, maker spaces and the like.
Truth is, these aren't new. They're old. But they had been priced out of the High Street by big chain retailers pushing up rents.
Truth is, these aren't new. They're old. But they had been priced out of the High Street by big chain retailers pushing up rents.
What we're seeing is the rewilding of the High Street. An ecology that had been damaged by big business being allowed to revert to its natural, balanced state.
Long live the High Street.
Long live the High Street.