Retail isn’t the answer to fill Wilko’s high street gap

Wilko’s disappearance would leave a huge gap. While its demise would be sad, it’s vital local authorities don’t make a knee-jerk decision and look to other retailers to fill the gap. The temptation to source another retail tenant will be strong, but these new occupiers won’t immediately attract or guarantee consistent and self-sustaining footfall.

Trying to tempt new anchor tenants with favourable lease terms perpetuates town centres’ dependency on shops and risks high streets becoming carbon copies of out-of-town retail parks.

Out-of-the-box thinking is needed to drive town centre revival. Our More Than Stores report argues long-term revival lies in planning for a range of anchor uses, including traditional retail, but also housing, flexible office space, logistics, healthcare, education, heritage reactivation and use of vacant land.

We’re used to daily warnings about the state of public finances, so shaking the magic money tree isn’t possible to make this happen. Public funding won’t stretch to every town that requires it, so there needs to be prioritisation; our research found some towns to be more resilient that others and therefore more capable of driving revival under their own steam.

Private capital doesn’t have the policy pathway to make investing in town centre regeneration financially or socially compelling. While public-private collaboration is often unjustly seen as an exception, rather than an aspiration of good local plan making, closer working between the two sectors is the key to lasting regeneration.

Wilko’s possible disappearance will leave up to 408 holes on UK high streets. Filling those holes with more shops is not the answer and wider thinking is needed to really reverse the decline of our beloved town centres.

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Alex Smith, managing director, infrastructure and specialist markets, Shakespeare Martineau