For many months now, it has become apparent that Britain’s high streets are in danger of becoming obsolete. Popular chains such as Woolworths, Peacocks and GAME, which have long been staples of high street trading, have closed the doors of their commercial properties over the past few years, leaving many retail commercial properties boarded up and abandoned in town centres nationwide.
However, it appears that not all high street traders are destined to fail, as startling new evidence shows.
Information compiled by the Local Data Company shows that the numbers of bookmakers, pawn shops and payday loan commercial properties have risen by an astonishing 25 per cent since the start of the recession back in 2008. In fact, the results also showed that Britain’s high streets now contain almost 8,000 bookmakers commercial properties, which almost rivals the total number of chemists or newsagent commercial properties.
Pound shops are also on the increase, although experts claim that these have now become so popular that they, too, are abandoning town centres, preferring to take up commercial property units in out of town retail malls and parks.
The business genre that rose most significantly on the high street was credit unions, as more and more people are attracted to their commercial properties in an attempt to pay bills as the recession deepens. Currently, there are 625 chain owned commercial properties such as The Money Shop and National Cash Advance present on our high streets, as well as 311 independent commercial property stores. Altogether, this adds up to an increase of 22.9 per cent on the high street since 2008.
Matthew Hopkinson, of the Local Data Company, says; “These figures show how much the high street has changed since 2008.
“A tripling of the number of vacant shops has been a catalyst for the expansion of a number of retailers on to high street locations from ‘off pitch’ areas of towns.” 
The figures are revealed just months after Mary Portas described the high streets as “at crisis point” in a damning independent review undertaken by the Government. With an average of 14 commercial property store closures on the high street every day last year, it appears that her words are uncomfortably accurate.
In fact, accountants PriceWaterhouseCoopers claim that, in the 2011-2012 financial year, a total of 5,268 commercial property stores were shut down by major retailers due to unprofitability. This outstripped the number of new openings, at only 5,094, meaning that Britain’s high street commercial properties are in severe danger of becoming obsolete.
British Retail Consortium spokesman Tom Ironside said; “The ideal is for the high street to offer a good mix of different types of business but for that to happen, town centres have to be attractive and affordable places to trade.
“The Government should be doing more to keep a lid on business rates and there needs to be investment in areas so consumers want to go there.”
John Walker, of the Federation of Small Businesses, agrees with Mr Ironside that many retailers are simply being priced out of town centre commercial properties.
He says; “The face of the high street has been changing for years, especially with rising costs and the emergence of out-of-town retail parks.
“With 40 per cent of small firms still being refused finance, demand for alternative sources of money is high, so the increase in credit unions is not surprising.
“It is worrying that so many independent stores are closing – while we must embrace the changes to our high street, we need to see long-term solutions put in place to get them back on their feet.”
Do you still regularly shop at high street commercial properties, or has the lure of out of town shopping centres become too great? How do you think the Government and the public could help struggling independent high street commercial properties?
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