{"id":32548,"date":"2022-02-18T17:16:10","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T17:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsblogsnew.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=32548"},"modified":"2022-02-18T17:17:32","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T17:17:32","slug":"pandemic-has-cost-some-places-nearly-a-years-worth-of-high-street-sales-new-centre-for-cities-report-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=32548","title":{"rendered":"Pandemic has cost some places nearly a years\u2019 worth of high street sales, new Centre for Cities report reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-19454\" src=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Oxford_Circus_London_W1_-_geograph.org_.uk_-_1604920-300x225.png\" alt=\"people\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/>Pandemic has cost some places nearly a years\u2019 worth of high street sales, new Centre for Cities report reveals &#8211; Covid-19 has \u2018levelled down\u2019 prosperous high streets, but poorer areas face bigger problems this year.<\/h3>\n<h6><em>image: By \u00a9 David Illif, User:Colin and Kim Hansen\u00a0\/\u00a0Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=48935922<\/em><\/h6>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><span style=\"color: #800080;\">\u2026 Government\u2019s Covid-19 support successfully stalled the decline of many struggling high streets\u2026<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n<p>Centre for cities writes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Central London, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Cardiff all lost nearly a years\u2019 worth of sales<\/li>\n<li>Government support shielded less prosperous areas but they face business closures this year<\/li>\n<li>More than 2,400 city and town centre units have become vacant so far during the pandemic<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Covid-19 has cost businesses in city and large town centres more than a third (35%) of their potential takings and shut down thousands since March 2020. This is according to\u00a0<em>Cities Outlook 2022<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Centre for Cities\u2019 annual economic assessment of the UK\u2019s largest urban areas.<\/p>\n<p>Central London is worst affected, losing 47 weeks of sales between the first lockdown and Omicron\u2019s onset. Businesses in Birmingham, Edinburgh and Cardiff city centres are also among the worst hit; all have also lost nearly a year\u2019s worth of potential sales.<\/p>\n<p>Across the 52 city and town centres studied, 2,426 commercial units have become vacant during the pandemic, against 1,374 between 2018 and 2020. In many prosperous city centres, lost sales are linked to an increase in business closures. In Oxford and Newcastle city centres the number of empty storefronts increased by around eight percentage points as sales fell.<\/p>\n<p>Burnley\u2019s city centre lost the fewest weeks of sales (8 weeks) during the pandemic, followed by Warrington and Huddersfield.<\/p>\n<p>High streets in economically weaker places have been less impacted by Covid-19. In the years before it hit, store vacancy rates in the centres of places such as Newport, Sunderland and Blackpool increased by around 3.6 percentage points. Since 2020 this has surprisingly fallen to 2.5 percentage points \u2013 despite restrictions. Meanwhile in economically stronger places, business closures increased by 3.5 percentage points during the pandemic \u2013 up from 1.4 percentage points in the two years before.<\/p>\n<p>This suggests that the Government\u2019s Covid-19 support successfully stalled the decline of many struggling high streets but was less effective in economically stronger places due to higher rents and a lack of custom from office workers.<\/p>\n<p>That said, while stronger cities have borne the economic brunt of the pandemic, their higher levels of affluence mean that, if restrictions end and office workers return, they will likely recover quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, while government support has sheltered weaker places, it may have simply stored up pain for the future. The report warns that many less prosperous places in the North and Midlands face a wave of new business closures this year.<\/p>\n<p>To avoid permanently levelling down prosperous places, policy makers should run campaigns to encourage leisure visitors back when safe to do so and provide part-time season tickets to encourage workers back to the office.<\/p>\n<p>For struggling places, policy makers drafting the Levelling Up White Paper should focus on dealing with struggling places\u2019 fundamental economic problems to address high street decline. This means investing in skills and ways to strengthen the wider local economy to increase money in shoppers\u2019 pockets, rather than on \u2018cosmetic\u2019 quick fixes such as hanging baskets and painting shop fronts.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Carter, Chief Executive of Centre for Cities, said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile the pandemic has been a tough time for all high streets it has levelled down our more prosperous cities and towns. Despite this, the strength of their wider local economies means they are well placed to recover quickly from the past two years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe bigger concern is for economically weaker places \u2013 primarily in the North and Midlands \u2013 where Covid-19 has actually paused their long-term decline. To help them avoid a wave of high street closures this year the Government must set out how it plans to increase peoples\u2019 skills and pay to give them the income needed to sustain a thriving high street. Many of these places are in the so-called Red Wall so there is a political imperative for the Government to act fast, as well as an economic one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.centreforcities.org\/press\/pandemic-has-cost-some-places-nearly-a-years-worth-of-high-street-sales\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more&#8230;.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pandemic has cost some places nearly a years\u2019 worth of high street sales, new Centre for Cities report reveals &#8211; Covid-19 has \u2018levelled down\u2019 prosperous high streets, but poorer areas face bigger problems this year. image: By \u00a9 David Illif, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=32548\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32550,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32548\/revisions\/32550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}