The disappearance of shops on our High Streets is becoming a saddening, yet relatively frequent phenomenon. In the last quarter of 2022, Paperchase announced it was going into administration. The company was subsequently bought by Tesco, but as far as I can see, the closure of Paperchase in The Glades (Bromley High Street) marked the end of the brand as I knew it. Only last month, an even more unexpected coup came- Wilko, one of the biggest home and garden stores in the UK, put out a statement announcing their going into administration and eventual shutdown. These shops, as well as small businesses and retailers, were hit hard by the COVID pandemic, which peaked at over 50 shops closing per day in 2022 across the UK.
However, the pandemic also changed society's perspectives towards shopping and going out; there's been a paradigm shift from keeping in mind how heavy your bags will get while running errands to watching how expensive your delivery fee is going to be. While online shopping makes goods and services much easier to obtain for disabled people (and the rest of us!), it also means more and more people are missing out on valuable, if uncomfortable, experiences. I learned to plot the most effective route through the high street to avoid lugging heavy bags around, but I can't say the new generation will learn the same.
Avid High Street enthusiast, Sarah Hau, had this to say:
It's really sad, actually. I like to see things in person before I buy them. And, of course, online shopping is convenient- I use Amazon for large orders- but its not quite the same if you just want a day out, is it?
Not only does the closure of iconic shops and brands affect the accessibility to and availability of consumer goods to purchase, but it also makes you wonder: how far is High Street culture going to change over the next 5, 10, 15 years? We've already seen a skyrocket in solely online shopping stores and self-checkout tills - removing a key point of human interaction and encouraging thefts respectively - and it looks like we're well on the way to a complete rebrand of what the original idea of the High Street is. It once was a place that unified the community, with the long winding road of shops sometimes being the only place for miles to get certain goods. Christmas Carol nights, buskers, the summer ice cream craze- all community events that brought us together. Now, though, the high street is becoming a commercialised shell of the spirit it used to embody.
Some argue that larger stores closing down makes more room for small businesses to grow, but the competitive nature of storefronts in high streets means that startups are extremely likely to be edged out by other chain stores for that valuable space, or might even fail because people prefer to stick to well-established brands they can (generally) rely on.
The high street is one of the bastions of British culture, a phenomenon that started in the mid-to-late 19th century and has thrived ever since. I would argue that the high street is one of the things we shouldn't let technology destroy. It comes down to a final question- is the sacrifice of a key part of the British lifestyle worth the cost of convenience?
