Centre for Cities’ research and analysis explores the challenges and opportunities faced by UK high streets and city centres. Our High Streets Recovery Tracker, launched during the pandemic, used near-real-time footfall and spend data to monitor how quickly high streets in the UK’s largest cities and towns returned to previous levels of activity and what the drivers were behind this.
Our comprehensive body of work on high streets explores the debate from a number of perspectives, reflecting on high street decline, assessing the impact of Covid-19, and proposing how high streets can be safeguarded in the coming years.
The high street is often a prominent news feature, with the fate of retail giants like Topshop, Arcadia or Debenhams often regarded as an indicator of a place’s economic and social struggles.
Some, but not all high streets are declining. Their performance varies greatly from one end of the country to the other: in June 2021, vacancy rates went from 10 per cent in Brighton to 33 per cent in Newport.
This is because the performance of the high street is a symptom of the strength of the city centre economy as a whole. In economically weak city centres, typically struggling with post-industrial decline and a low-productivity labour market, demand for high street businesses is weak because of low levels of disposable income. By comparison, in stronger city centres, the presence of high-paid workers creates a market for shops and restaurants to sell to, and high streets thrive as a result.
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The past two and a half years have been tough on UK high streets. The restrictions introduced in early 2020 in response to Coronavirus triggered an unprecedented hollowing out of city centres and high streets up and down the country.
Covid-19 turned the performance of the high street on its head. It is the UK’s largest, most successful city centres like London, Manchester, Cardiff and Bristol that were the hardest hit during lockdowns and were slower to recover when the economy reopened. Businesses in central London, for instance, lost about a year worth of sales between March 2020 and September 2021. This is because their strengths became weaknesses: many of these places had a high share of workers with office jobs and a wide and affluent catchment area- making them more vulnerable to shifts to remote-working and travel restrictions.
The pandemic has left scars, but it has far from killed high streets and shopping centres. Footfall and spending data now show that most of these places have reclaimed their role as a prime destination for shopping and leisure.
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One of a number of popular tropes that have been frequently heard in the past two years is that there has been a rise in spending on suburban high streets at the expense of city centres, and that this is due to more people working from home and spending time and money locally.
It is definitely true that suburban high streets have been more sheltered than city centres during the pandemic. But footfall and spending data show no clear signs of a work from home dividend for suburban high streets. This suggests that even when office workers are at home, they are not visiting their local town centres as much as we may have expected.
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Online shopping is often considered to be the biggest threat to bricks and mortar retailers. The pandemic undeniably accelerated an existing shift: internet shopping peaked during lockdowns, and stabilised or fell in most places, but never quite back to 2019 levels- a sign of stickiness of behaviours as people became more acquainted with online shopping.
But this doesn’t necessarily mean online shopping is killing high streets and city centres. Evidence shows that more online shopping does not necessarily mean more empty shops, as what really matters is the affluence of the local economy. And not all the extra spending that is made online affect the typical high street retailers: groceries, for instance, account for a large part of the shift online, while the hospitality industry is much more sheltered. Our analysis suggests there will be life for UK high streets in the future, but many will have to adapt the nature of their offer.
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Centre for Cities research has demonstrated there is a tangible link between the presence of high-skilled, well-paid jobs in city centres and the quality and quantity of high street amenities.
To secure the long-term future of British high streets we require a rethink of regeneration strategies, strengthening the role city centres play as a place of production, not just consumption. Policy must focus on improving the skills provision of city residents and making city centres more attractive places for knowledge-based businesses.
“Good jobs and a strong local economy are the keys to saving high streets. Any interventions that seek to improve cities’ amenities without boosting consumer spending power are doomed to fail from an economic perspective.” – Andrew Carter, Chief Executive of Centre for Cities
Successful high streets will strike the right balance between different types of use. The performance of the high street cannot be approached in isolation from other functions city centres should serve, in particular as places of work. The role of local policymakers is to create the right conditions for businesses to locate, by ensuring the right provision of high-quality office space alongside other types of commercial uses.
Successful high streets will also offer what we cannot find at home or online, by moving away from over reliance on retail towards the ‘experience’ leisure economy. This happened organically in recent years in high-demand places like London, Reading or Manchester, which again suggests that boosting demand should be the priority; but policymakers can use planning powers and recent planning reforms to help do this.
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High streets are only briefly mentioned in the Levelling Up White Paper, coined under the ‘Pride in Place’ mission. It states that rejuvenate declining high streets will require a clear focus on ‘place-making, planning and design’. Those cosmetic interventions that seek to improve the physical design of a place may well be important. But they’re unlikely to succeed because they do not address the underlying economic fundamentals- and in particular the lack of consumer spending power. The White Paper fails to recognise that the lack of economic dynamism is the root of the problem, and derelict high streets the outcome, not the other way around.
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A deep dive into what changing working practices and shifts to homeworking have meant for our high streets and city centres
Senior Analyst Valentine Quinio shares key findings from Centre for Cities' latest briefing: Homeworking and the high street
This briefing looks at the impact that homeworking is having on local businesses, how important it is for the high street that office workers return, and what prospects it faces if they don’t.
New briefing from Centre for Cities compares weekday footfall and spending data for UK city centres against pre-pandemic levels
While it has been frequently claimed that the shift to home working has been a boon for suburban high streets, the data tells a different story
Explore Centre for Cities core analysis into the fate of UK high streets after two turbulent years of pandemic restrictions
Cities Outlook 2022 looks in-depth at the state of UK high streets to get a sense of the short-term impact of the pandemic on Britain's town and city centres and the long-term consequences and implications this has for the Government’s levelling up agenda.
Covid-19 has ‘levelled down’ prosperous high streets, but poorer areas face bigger problems this year
Our analysis shows that the city centres that were the strongest performers pre-pandemic were hardest hit by Covid-19
Not all high streets have been evenly affected by Covid-19, Cambridge and Mansfield serve as telling examples.
A collection of our most prominent work into how the high street has coped throughout the pandemic.
The second in a series of blogs marking two years on from Covid-19, focusing on what the pandemic has meant for the high streets of our largest city and town centres.
Analyst Valentine Quinio explores the latest high street spend and footfall data to establish what impact England’s ‘Freedom Day’ had on consumer behaviour, and what this means for high street recovery.
What can we learn from spending behaviours on food deliveries and transport throughout the pandemic?
How to revive the high street after the pandemic.
Tune in to a variety of podcast episodes which address and explore the challenges and opportunities faced by the Great British High Street.
Analyst Valentine Quinio discusses the challenges faced by our high streets and city centres, and how the levelling up agenda should support them.
Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Senior Analyst Kathrin Enenkel and Analyst Valentine Quinio to unpack the main findings and implications of Cities Outlook 2022
Valentine Quinio and Andrew Carter discuss the key findings from Centre for Cities' latest briefing, Homeworking and the high street.
The Government launched the Eat Out To Help Out scheme to support the hospitality sector and encourage people to return to restaurants and cafes. More than 64 million meals were sold as part...
Prominent local leaders reflect on the recovery of their high streets and city centres through various lenses.
Cities Outlook and its associated research has examined the ongoing impact of Covid-19 on high streets and town centres and what this means for places as they recover and grow from the pandemic.
Cities Outlook 2022 welcomed some of the country’s most prominent local leaders to reflect on the recovery of their high streets and city centres through various lenses
We hosted the final of our Future of Cities events.
At this event we discussed how two years of Covid-19 have changed the way we live, work and play in the UK’s largest towns and cities
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National and local policymakers need to pay close attention to the signals that revaluation is sending on the health of the urban economies of England and Wales.
High streets expert Valentine Quinio draws on examples of high streets that are performing well to paint a picture of what a sustainable, long-term future could look like.
Valentine Quinio and Andrew Carter discuss the key findings from Centre for Cities' latest briefing, Homeworking and the high street.
This briefing looks at the impact that homeworking is having on local businesses, how important it is for the high street that office workers return, and what prospects it faces if they don’t.
Senior Analyst Valentine Quinio shares key findings from Centre for Cities' latest briefing: Homeworking and the high street
Introducing compulsory rental auction policy could be a good start, but more needs to be done to ensure businesses thrive
Explore the changing levels of activity within the high streets of Britain's cities and large towns from February 2020 to May 2022.
At this event we discussed how two years of Covid-19 have changed the way we live, work and play in the UK’s largest towns and cities
The second in a series of blogs marking two years on from Covid-19, focusing on what the pandemic has meant for the high streets of our largest city and town centres.
Ten case studies comparing the public transport networks and urban form of UK and Western European cities
