Businesses in central London lost the equivalent of an entire year of sales in the first 18 months of the coronavirus pandemic, a Centre for Cities report released on Monday has found.
It also suggested that the much trumpeted rise in online shopping was not necessarily the result of a shift away from the high street and that offline spending has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The hefty economic hit to the UK capital was reflected in other major metropolises with Birmingham and Edinburgh the next worst affected.
Their traditionally stronger high streets both lost more than 40 weeks of sales between March 2020 and September 2021. The national average during this period was 28 weeks. Conversely, smaller metropolises such as the northern towns of Burnley and Warrington lost five times fewer weeks of sales.
The report, which was released in the week Boris Johnson's government is expected to announce the next stage of its 'levelling up' agenda for the UK's poorest regions, ascribes this trend to the pandemic turning conventional strengths into Covid-19 weaknesses.
Before the emergence of the coronavirus, stronger town and city centres exerted a firm gravitational pull on workers, shoppers and tourists from farther afield. Customers from outside their boundaries accounted for 54 per cent of business sales, according to the report. The equivalent figure for towns and cities with weaker high streets was 37 per cent.
These weaker high streets have fewer non-essential retail shops, office blocks and hospitality outlets than their stronger counterparts. They are also surrounded by more less-affluent areas.
As such, when Covid-19 struck and restrictions were imposed which closed all but shops deemed essential and mandated home-working, these smaller centres were less exposed than their stronger counterparts as, put bluntly, they had less to lose.
Centre for Cities data bore this out, with stronger city centres experiencing the largest drop in spending in April 2021.
Its data also showed that hospitality — intrinsic to the economic well-being of stronger centres — was the sector most affected by the pandemic.
The proportionally greater drop in sales in stronger city centres had a knock-on effect on store vacancy rates.
Business closures in these locations have increased by 3.5 percentage points during the pandemic, up from 1.4 percentage points in the two years before. On the other hand, in economically weaker centres the number of closures has fallen from 3.6 to 2.5 percentage points since 2020.
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
Andrew Carter,
Centre for Cities
Centre for Cities suggested the UK government's Covid-10 support measures had been more effective in limiting damage in weaker high streets, but warned that they may only have served to defer the hardship with less-prosperous places in the North and Midlands facing a wave of new business closures later this year.
“To help [these places] avoid a wave of high street closures this year, the government must set out how it plans to increase peoples’ skills and pay to give them the income needed to sustain a thriving high street,” said Centre for Cities chief executive Andrew Carter.
“Many of these places are in the so-called Red Wall [of former Labour Party seats] so there is a political imperative for the government to act fast, as well as an economic one.”
Mr Carter is less concerned about the long-term prosperity of the “levelled down” stronger city centres, which he said were “well placed to recover quickly from the past two years".
The City for Centres report said that this recovery could be expedited by campaigns encouraging leisure customers into cities, and the introduction of flexible rail tickets to make the prospect of working from offices less financially onerous to prospective commuters.
Online sales assumption queried
Further cause for optimism can be found in data monitoring online and offline sales throughout the pandemic.
The rise in online spending has been well documented, but the report questions the widely held belief that this rise comes at the expense of sales on the high street.
It found that by September 2021, spending in bricks and mortar stores had bounced back in most cities (52 out of 62), including those where internet shopping increased the most, such as Exeter and Cardiff.
It did not find evidence, however, that online spending replaced shopping that would otherwise have been done in city and town centres. In other words, rather than eating into the existing sales pie, digital retail appears to have expanded it.
During the period monitored, the biggest shift was in groceries where online spending was between 200 and 250 per cent higher than the 2019 baseline.
Despite a rise in the amount of food and drink bought on the internet when restrictions were introduced, offline spending in restaurants, pubs and cafes had bounced back well above the baseline by September 2021.
Even in the fashion retail sector, which was heavily affected by the pandemic, bricks and mortar spend was, on average, close to full recovery.
The report does acknowledge that this latter data set somewhat obscures a key variation: offline spending on clothing was at or above the baseline level in just seven cities.
It thus postulates Covid-19 may have accelerated the demise of fashion retailers in some high streets, especially weaker ones where this sector takes up a higher share of spend.
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Wicked: For Good
Director: Jon M Chu
Starring: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater
Rating: 4/5
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
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500 People from Gaza enter France
115 Special programme for artists
25 Evacuation of injured and sick
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French business
France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.
Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Company profile
Company: Eighty6
Date started: October 2021
Founders: Abdul Kader Saadi and Anwar Nusseibeh
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Hospitality
Size: 25 employees
Funding stage: Pre-series A
Investment: $1 million
Investors: Seed funding, angel investors
How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
- Nord Anglia International School (Dubai) – Dh85,032
- Kings School Al Barsha (Dubai) – Dh71,905
- Brighton College Abu Dhabi - Dh68,560
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6pm: Wathba Stallions Cup – Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: AF Fakhama, Fernando Jara, Mohamed Daggash
6.30pm: Wadi Shees – Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: Mutaqadim, Antonio Fresu, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami
7pm: Arabian Triple Crown Round-1 – Listed (PA) Dh230,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Bahar Muscat, Antonio Fresu, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami
7.30pm: Wadi Tayyibah – Maiden (TB) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Poster Paint, Patrick Cosgrave, Bhupat Seemar
