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The coronavirus pandemic will “greatly accelerate” the decline of Britain’s main street, where the number of stores could be halved in the next two years, MPs reported.
British Property Federation Executive Director Melanie Leech said “there will inevitably be casualties” among retailers, and that there is likely to be a 50% reduction in stores on a typical main street now in a longer time frame. short.
The business, energy and business strategy committee asked Leech how many stores would remain on a 100-storey main street after the pandemic.
Referring to the long-term change to online shopping, Leech said: “Because the main street is changing, we will need fewer physical sales in the future. That would have been seen in a couple of years, before the coronavirus, more like possibly 50 or 60 stores and a variety of other uses that are being implemented on the main street.
“We will see empty premises, because not all companies will succeed. I can’t put a number on that, but that trend was happening anyway and will be greatly accelerated by the impact of the coronavirus. “
Andrew Goodacre, executive director of the British Association of Independent Retailers, told parliamentarians that 20% of its members cannot reopen because it would be more expensive for them to operate their stores if the footprint is low.
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Evidence from other countries such as Germany, where stores have begun to reopen, suggests that retail will be depressed for some time, said Helen Dickinson, executive director of the British Retail Consortium.
She and the heads of the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) urged the government to gradually reduce measures to support Covid-19 companies gradually, to avoid a precipice if they withdraw altogether.
BCC’s Adam Marshall warned that otherwise “you will see many more companies heading for insolvency.”
Speaking on behalf of retailers, Dickinson said: “The government really shouldn’t turn off the tap once the restrictions are lifted or when we get to the end of June, because there is no way that demand will be back to what it was.” before. I certainly have no doubt that people will be very cautious about how they shop for security reasons and because of the pressure on money in their pocket. “
