|
Thursday, 02 February 2012 |
|
Phil Wrigley, one of the UK's most respected and
experienced retail experts, has said the British high street is in a "death spiral" at a conference at Oxford University.
The former chairman of the fashion retailer New Look also criticised the much publicised high street report by Mary Portas as the "right diagnosis, wrong prescription". With a high percentage of empty stores and vacancies in the UK's town centres, his criticism comes at a time of urgent poignancy.
Discussing a solution, Mr Wrigley called for the "reinvention" of high streets. He explained: "Retailing will never be the same again, but there is much to be gained from facing up to this fundamental, and irreversible, truth. In doing so, we might just create the space in which we can re-cast and revitalise our town centre communities. There comes a point at which vacancy rates are so high that no new retailers will come in to a location because they don't want to be sited among empty shops. It is, in effect, a death spiral. There is some debate about precisely where this threshold lies but it's probably between 20 per cent and 30 per cent."
According to the Independent broadsheet, Wrigley believes the high street has failed to keep up with a "forty-year revolution in retail", citing factors including how the big supermarkets, online and shopping centres, complete with leisure facilities, have changed the landscape.
|
