Can the high street still be saved?

The closure of 400 Wilko stores – at the cost of 12,500 jobs – spells more misery for the high street. Wilko joins a pantheon of big brand names who have been forced to shut their doors since the pandemic. We have seen the loss of Debenhams, the Arcadia Group (which owned Dorothy Perkins, Topshop and Topman), Victoria’s Secret, Paperchase, Oasis and Warehouse, Made.com and Cath Kidston among many others. 

According to the British Retail Consortium, the crisis on our high streets goes back further, with 6,000 storefronts closing since 2018. Last year was the worst year for retail in five years, seeing the loss of 150,000 jobs from the high street and out of town shopping centres.

The situation has become so bad that Dame Sharon White, boss of John Lewis, has called for a Royal Commission to investigate how to revitalise our high streets, the first of its kind since the Victorian era. She identifies rising crime, ‘unfair’ business rates, poor planning rules, and the government’s ‘tourist tax’ as all contributing to the slow strangulation of the high street.