A fifth of high street stores plan to stay closed permanently after the coronavirus lockdown unwinds, retail leaders have told MPs.
Andrew Goodacre, chief executive of the British Independent Retailers Association, told the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee it has been the “worst time ever for retail” after the pandemic hit the UK.
He said 20% of retailers surveyed by the trade body claimed they do not intend to reopen after the lockdown.
Mr Goodacre added: “For those even saying they would look to reopen, there is a huge caveat about the level of trade on whether they would continue to reopen.
“If the footfall is impacted and social distancing exists and they find it hard to meet needs of customers and workers, it would be more expensive to reopen than to stay closed.”
Brave, customer-focussed retailers who work closely with others in their community are most likely to survive in #postlockdown UK, according to @bira_CEO. https://t.co/WivDHo6s0b
— Bira (@biraofficial) April 30, 2020
Non-essential retailers shut their doors last month as part of the Government-mandated lockdown, while food retailers have seen sales surge in recent weeks due to strong demand.
Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, told the committee that 69% of non-food retailers have been “significantly” impacted by the virus.
She told MPs: “There is no way that anybody is expecting that demand will revert to what it was before – there will be a slow gearing back up.
“What implementing social distancing will mean is that normal capacity to serve customers will be restricted and, certainly from a public perspective, I have no doubt that people will be very cautious about how they shop, for safety reasons and because of pressure on money in their pockets.”
Ms Dickinson called on the Government to not “turn off the tap” of financial support for businesses, calling for tapered support as customer demand starts to recover.
The Chancellor has announced a range of support measures for retailers and other businesses, including a business rates holiday, the job retention scheme and business interruption loans.
However, Mr Goodacre said only 20% of members have attempted to access the loans as they “don’t see debt as the solution”, with just 20% of these applications securing cash support.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel