Credit crunch leaves High Streets more deserted

It has been claimed that the ongoing global financial crisis and the recession have resulted in the High Streets of Britain being left more and more deserted, as a rising number of shoppers decide to cut back on their spending. A recent report showed that an increasing number of people deserted in the High Street in March, as the effects of the difficult financial climate continued to take their toll.

The data comes from the Experian Footfall UK National Index. The report showed that on average shopper numbers on the High Street in March fell by around 1.7 percent. Amongst the worst hit areas were the South West and Wales, where shopper number dropped by over 7 percent.

However, there were a few areas where there was a rise in the number of shoppers, these being the East Midlands, the South East, and the North East.

Sunita Bali, Experian’s senior UK economist, said: “Our FootFall data and latest ONS sales figures (showing a 1.9% fall in spending volumes in February) confirm what we have long suspected – that consumers are cutting back on their spending and the growth in sales during January was mainly the result of heavy discounting.”

Experian has predicted that retail sales will fall by 1 percent in 2009, indicating that the gloomy outlook is not likely to improve in the foreseeable future.

There are also concerns that many of the once popular High Streets in the UK are at risk of becoming more like ghost towns as a result of an increase in the number of companies going into administration because of the recession. Retailers are being pushed out of business due to a range of factors, such as lack of access to finances, low consumer confidence and spending, and rising costs.

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