We should confront an uncomfortable truth: we have too many shops

We have neglected our ‘legacy’ retailers but the fact is we are not a ‘nation of shopkeepers’, like someone once said, and some of the shops we’ll lose aren’t great, writes Chris Blackhurst

People queue outside the Debenhams department store, which is expected to close down, on London’s Oxford Street (AP)

At last, the twin demise of Arcadia and Debenhams may bring us to our senses. Britain is staring at a major crisis, and no I don’t mean the pandemic. I refer to the one that has been hanging over us for a while, and the powers-that-be have done precious little about.

It’s been creeping up on us ever since people realised that staying at home, free, in the warmth and browsing on a screen at leisure was preferable to slogging into the shops, paying for dreadful public transport or for parking in places where the lifts don’t work and the stairs smell of urine, and traipsing around gloomy stores where, when you find the item you want, the chances are they don’t have your size. In fact, they often tell you to “try online”.

If that sounds too gloomy, all I will say is that I could have painted a far worse picture of boozed-up yobs, streets of litter, of cans and takeaway cartons strewn across chewing gum-adorned pavements. No, once the digital sellers got their act together and invested in fast distribution and delivery, the high street’s number was up. Today, I can order something and it can be with me in hours. In China, the standard in the big cities is now down to half an hour – that’s from the moment you click to when the box arrives. Awesome.