January 8 2009

Britain’s ravaged retail sector looks set to send a slew of towns down as spend thrift shoppers guard their pennies.

Clydebank, Cumbernauld, Kilmarnock, Kirkintilloch and Rutherglen have been singled out by business researcher, Experian as being particularly exposed owing to a glut of vacant units – prior to the credit crunch riding into town.

Researchers are predicting the economic squeeze could spell the end for a mind boggling 135,000 stores across the UK by the end of the year.

Jonathan de Mello, director of retail consultancy at Experian, advised: “The unprecedented level of retail vacancy will be disproportionately spread across Britain, so that smaller retail destinations – in particular market towns – will be worst affected.”

With big name staples of the High Street such as Woolworths fading into memory the spaces they vacate in the urban and economic fabric of local communities will not readily be filled.

Experts argue that this dismal future need not be inevitable and businesses should collaborate as a means of marketing themselves more effectively.  Retailers are already engaged in a price war and devising ever more cunning marketing stratagems to pull in the punters.  

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