Britain’s city centres have had a battering in the past three years. Covid left many almost deserted for three months during lockdown. Shops, pubs and restaurants lost millions of pounds and many were forced to close. Some cities — and not just London — proved resilient and began to see a revival as Covid restrictions were lifted. Despite new patterns of working from home, there was a big enough return to the office last year and a revival of eating out to bring back some life to city centres. But the new year sees new gloom. Labour shortages have hit the hospitality industry hard. Inflation has pushed up costs. Falling incomes have reduced footfall in the shops. And rail strikes, now stepped up for the new year, are crippling attempts to bring visitors and shoppers back to city centres.
The figures tell a depressing story across the country. Last year more than 17,000 shops, mostly in the big cities, closed for good — a rate 50 per cent higher than in 2021. In the past year shops were shutting at the rate of 47 a day, many of them branches of large retail chains, according to the independent Centre for Retail Research. Sales will rise by only 2.3 per cent in the first half of this year, other figures show, and measured by value may rise by as little as 1 per cent.
Shopping is only part of the fabric of Britain’s large cities. Equally important to their vibrancy are the theatres, restaurants, clubs, museums, and big offices. All have been hit by the sudden rise in energy costs. The government has offered emergency relief, offering financial support for energy bills. But these one-off subsidies for businesses are soon to be pared back, although voluntary sector bodies, charities, schools and hospitals are still to receive discounts.
Inflation, however, is taking a big toll. Pubs and restaurants cannot pay overtime rates and many are having to shut early. They also cannot find staff, with growing competition in a tight market increasingly fierce in city centres. And theatres are struggling, even over the Christmas season, to fill the house or to halt rising losses.
All this makes for a bleak outlook in not only London’s once prosperous West End but in the centres of Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Birmingham, Glasgow and other urban conglomerates. They are already facing long-term dangers. The growth of out-of-town retail centres threatens established city shops, despite planning restrictions aimed at curbing acres of new mega-shopping parks. Britain can see the ghastly example of what has happened to some American cities, hollowed out like doughnuts, with their inner core empty and derelict and taken over by crime.
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It is not only commerce and culture that suffer from urban stagnation. Tourism is a vital foreign currency earner, and visitors come as much to spend and visit restaurants and pubs as they do to admire the historic culture and serenity of Bath, Cambridge and Edinburgh. Almost all activities bringing money and zest to city centres, including conferences, trade fairs and sporting fixtures, depend on urban solvency and thronged streets.
There is the promise of further government relief. From April, retailers will receive temporary support with business rates, with a 75 per cent discount on business rates up to a limit of £110,000 per business. But that will not stop many big retail chains deciding to “rationalise” their network of stores. Smaller towns may pick up much of the trade. Indeed, more and more people now shop locally, largely out of frustration with seemingly endless rail strikes and road congestion.
It is easy to blame the myopic rail unions for endangering not only city life but also the future of the rail industry itself. But city mayors must still do more to hold together their communities. Economists promise that things will ease later this year. Until then, imagination and innovation will have to keep Britain’s city centres alive.