The high street is vulnerable and there is no vaccine to protect it. This old normal meets new normal, but we are a long way from the kind of dispersed society that provides urban connectivity with a rural glow. Dominic Browne reports
Recent news of major high street chains going bust is just the latest dispatch from the western shopfront, which is quiet and getting quieter.
Common logic says that after online retail wormed its way into every market the high street rose became sick, but it did not start there. It started, as with so many tragic fashions, in the 1970s.
The most dangerous thing for any ecosystem is a lack of diversity. In 1971 around 70% of retail sales were generated by 29,000 different retailers. By the year 2000, just 100 retailers held that 70%.
Briggate, Leeds 2020
That statistic comes courtesy of Professor Cathy Parker, co-chair of the Institute of Place Management and research lead for the Government's High Streets Task Force.
'We have the most concentrated retail sector in any western economy. Multiple retail has throttled out independent retailers,' she tells delegates at ADEPT's autumn conference.
She points out that out of town retail is another old but remaining threat: 'Retail spend in high streets declined by 25% after the out of town movement - that is way before online shopping.'
Taken together, 'towns lost their uniqueness and function, and a lot of people stopped caring'.
There is an argument that COVID represents what economists call creative destruction - a lot of dominant brands are closing down, paving the way for something new to be born.
'Footfall patterns tell us 10 years ago most towns were shopping towns. Now half of towns are multi-functional towns,' Prof Parker says.
It is the multi-use hub that Prof Parker sees as a more stable model for the future.
Laura Church, interim corporate director, public health, wellbeing and housing at Luton Borough Council, says: 'Luton town centre was already struggling before COVID and we'd taken a decision to set out a new master plan and vision for the town centre. What we have had to focus on is it won't be a retail-led regeneration scheme anymore.
'Retail will be a part but it will be a very mixed neighbourhood with links to public transport. There will be space for people to work, but not in big office blocks. The work will be digital, creative, small places you might pop in and out with a different feel.'
As bad luck would have it, the supermarkets who started this trend are the most insulated against the danger of the internet - only 6.3% of food sales are online.
But such is the power of online that it may still come as a surprise to find out from the Office of National Statistics that it rarely secured more than 20% of total retail sales before COVID.
In April of this year, online sales leapt to over 30% for the first time, but despite settling down again, some people are forecasting that online sales will soon rise above 50%.
What does this mean for transport?
Joanna Averley, chief planner at communities department MHCLG, warns that it could have big implications.
'We have probably never really had to think about there being less retail. We have always been on a trajectory of more retail before, and many cities have always been on a trajectory of more commercial office space or a desire to have more commercial office space.'
The high street's downwards trend is most pronounced in large urban areas, and this is coupled now with rumours of a shift towards property demand in rural areas thanks to COVID.
Ms Averley says it could be too early to tell whether this is mere anecdote or a trend, but it is is 'important to watch and see'.
'We are hearing of greater demands in rural areas and we have to see over the next 6-18 months what are long term trends and what are blips. If it turns into a long-term trend that changes ridership in transport, changes peak flows in transport; this underpins the business case.'
Bev Hindle, executive director of the Oxfordshire Growth Board, is leaning towards the creative destruction side of the debate and looking for positives.
'I think there is a real opportunity here. I think town centres were in need of serious rethinking anyway.
'I am really impressed with the idea of the 20-minute neighbourhood - a useful model for lots of different sizes of communities. Big cities like London are going to have to think about they will work, but London is a series of interconnected neighbourhoods itself. Maybe there is a resurrection back to local neighbourhoods.
'In the village where I live we opened up a market two days a week during COVID - unimaginable before. We were a commuter town before COVID people.
'We can't predict the future and we should not all over plan the future, but there are decisions we need to make quite quickly to make sure we are not building white elephants, we are not wasting public money, and we are enabling healthy connectivity.'
However, while rural areas might be facing the chance of a renaissance, Mr Hindle points out there are pressures out in the sticks too.
For a start, there is a major inequality problem and housing affordability gap that could be exacerbated if greater demand drives house prices up. Building lots of new houses runs us into the old English greenbelt nimby debate. And of course, connectivity is a major issue.
Mr Hindle says: 'The idea you can move to the rural community and demand normal urban connectivity, that would create way too much tension and is something we have to look to as we develop our infrastructure strategies going forward.'
The Department for Transport (DfT) is currently wrestling with the issues facing rural transport and has launched a call to evidence. Director of local transport Stepehen Fidlar must know all too well the difficulties including over-dependence on private cars, an older population, challenges accessing key services and a lack of active travel.
Mr Fidlar says he accepts that the active travel and public transport solutions are much easier in urban areas but 'there is a whole range of things that can apply in a rural context or that we need to do more work on or do more pilots on'.
'It just seems like it is behind the curve in terms of what the solutions interventions might be at the moment'.
The DfT asked for applications earlier this year for the rural mobility fund - to help fund to trial on-demand bus services in rural or suburban areas.
It seems this fell by the wayside with COVID, as the winners have not been announced yet 'but we hope to get back to that very soon', Mr Fidlar says.
'That is the kind of thing we are hoping to pilot. If you look at places like Cornwall, they have still managed to have a really strong vision for public transport and the connectivity of rural locations to towns in that setting.
'I think there still potential to use some public transport intervention but start to couple that with more demand response options and perhaps some different kind of active travel interventions.'
For those who feel all this change is too much, the old normal may well be waiting ahead after all.
Toby Park, principal advisor, head of energy and sustainability at the Behavioural Insights Team - part-owned by the Cabinet Office - warns that when it comes to positive transport behavioural change 'the window of opportunity is quite narrow we do need to act quick'.
When it comes to changing habits, you tend to find that they re-emerge and cement quite quickly, but the dust still hasn't settled. It's really about not just relying on the individual's changed perceptions or attitudes on the back of COVID to expect people to change themselves. It's really about baking it into the choice environment.
Can we get that infrastructure up and ready quickly and make those behaviour changes as easy as possible as soon as possible?
