Fancy arranging a mortgage, having a drink and picking up some medicine?

There are more than 2,300 fewer chain shops in high streets, retail parks and shopping centres today than there were back at the beginning of 2024.  This data was released today in a survey undertaken by Green Street for PwC, and covers businesses with more than five outlets and includes everything from retail and hospitality to gyms, banks and hairdressers. It does not include independent traders.

Chain stores were shuttered at a net rate of 12 a day, with chemists, pubs and banks accounting for half of those closures.  On average, 18 chemists, 16 pubs and nine banks shut down every week between January and June.  This has been driven by the withdrawal of Lloyds Pharmacy from the high street and the closing down of hundreds of Boots stores, while Stonegate pubs, the owner of the Slug & Lettuce and Be At One brands, also disposed of 34 trading sites.

UK banks have consistently closed branches as many consumers switch to digital banking, causing concern about the impact on local communities. The number of UK bank branches to have shut over the last nine years passed 6,000 earlier this year.

The figures showed high streets had the worst level of net closures, while retail parks are seeing net openings and shopping centres on an improving trend.

“The bad news was very concentrated in terms of types of business and location,” said Kien Tan, a senior retail adviser at PwC. “Since the pandemic it has got harder to get into town and easier to get to retail parks,” Tan said. He said the shift towards working from home may have affected high streets which were also being hit by a recent upturn in online shopping.

Tan said that outside big cities, there was a shift to the “convenience of being in the car”, which benefited retail parks at the expense of high streets. He added: “High streets have got to evolve”, although they can’t all allow cars down them can they?

Only four types of chain store expanded the number of outlets by more than one a week including convenience stores, value retailers – such as B&M or Home Bargains, cafes and coffee shops, which have been moving into retail parks with new formats such as drive-thrus.

Tan said the number of visitors to UK high streets, shopping centres and retail parks was 15-20% lower than before the pandemic and has continued to decline in 2024, not helped by that old favourite for the blame in Britain, the wet weather.  Online retail has continued to grow during 2024, with almost 28% of all retail sales online in July 2024, the highest proportion since February 2022 when we were all concerned by Greek letters, this time Omicron.