Shropshire’s shops may be in a slightly better shape than the rest of the UK, but the effects of out-of-town developments and pressure from the big supermarkets are still being felt.

Developers Hark Apollo want Asda to form the centrepiece of its multi-million pound redevelopment plans for Telford Shopping Centre.

Somewhere in Shropshire a shop is failing every week. But the good news is that the county’s main high streets are doing better than many other places.

This will be little comfort if your shop is a casualty, but it does mean that others are keeping going and there is a chance that vacant properties will be reopened.

One in eight shops across the UK is empty. In some towns it is as many as one in four. In the worst cases many of these shops will remain empty until they are knocked down by redevelopers.

Becoming a ‘retail ghost town’ is a real danger in some of Telford’s component towns, but in other places – despite more failures – the situation is some way from this. In Shrewsbury, nine per cent of shops are vacant, according to a survey released earlier this month. That is a big jump on a year ago, but better than the average.

The figure for the Telford Shopping Centre is six per cent, however, this flatters Telford because there the units are bigger and the holes in the shopping centre more obvious than in Shrewsbury.

January and February is always a bad time for the retail trade. Bad weather makes it worse. The failure of Ethel Austin and the closure of its Wellington and Shrewsbury shops shows that it is far too soon to be talking of a sustained recovery.

Shropshire’s unemployment may be lower than the national average but it will grow, meaning would-be customers are still concerned about reducing household debts.

Pressure

But the problems of the high street are deeper than the recession. Local centres are threatened by out-of-centre developments and the continued pressure from the likes of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, and discounters such as Aldi and Lidl. They are also a victim of the growth of internet shopping for some niche goods such as books and music.

Running any kind of business is a gamble, and the future is always unknown. Worse still, you are never really in control of your environment. If a big supermarket opens nearby you may be in difficulties. For every two jobs they create, three may be taken away in local shops. But if a big store in your high street disappears, that can be just as bad as the trade it brought in goes with it.

So how do you survive? Big plans to revitalise shopping centres are on hold everywhere as private investors adopt a wait-and-see attitude until recovery comes. Planning sceptics will welcome this. Creating more ‘clone’ shopping centres may not be the way forward.

Perhaps it is better to encourage development from below. But this can involve painful choices. Take cars. However much we may oppose them, when it comes to shopping if the cars leave then so, it seems, do we. Pedestrianisation has created an unhappy legacy for many places. Even if they are busy at peak times, outside of these they become empty and lonely places.

Shopping centres need buzz, they need a sense of movement. A market in the right place can be a great help.

Shrewsbury’s market may only be a short distance from the centre but it is enough these days to reduce the number of people going there. Wellington’s market seems to perform rather better. Bridgnorth’s Saturday market, sited between the main car park and the town, and down the main stream, gives it a buzz that many other Shropshire towns would love. Mid-week, Market Drayton is also transformed by its long street market.

The Cooperative store in the centre of a town such as Shifnal competes with other local traders, but not so much as a giant store on the outskirts would.

Having a chemist close by and the doctor’s surgery not too far away also ensures that more people are around than in places such as nearby Oakengates, where people can drive to and from the local medical centre and pharmacy without the need to go into the main street.

Niche shops can survive but this is very often a matter of trial and error for those who run them.

Even a good range of charity shops helps. These are not simply space-fillers. Some use them because they are cheap, others because they recycle.

Tipping point

There is, however, a debate about the extent to which they can also undercut normal businesses, such as second-hand bookshops. But if they do help to keep a centre going, it is important to beware a centre that is all charity shops as this may be a sign that it is reaching the tipping point of no return.

So, as hopes rise that the bad weather is slowly beginning to fade and the first shoots of spring appear, even though Shropshire is doing better than most, there are still a lot of shopkeepers with their fingers crossed.

One of the great myths of business is that everyone who starts up wants to become an Alan Sugar. Often the real story is that they want more control over their lives and to do the thing they love.

But in the current situation this may mean going the extra mile to survive. If they do not, we will all be the worse for it.

By Michael Haynes

Business lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton’s Shropshire campus.