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When a chain store shutters down for the last time, a town doesn’t just lose a shop, it loses a piece of itself.

For years, that storefront was a meeting point, a marker, a kind of civic heartbeat. “Meet me outside Boots.” “I’ll grab it from WHSmith.” These places stitched towns together, not because they were special, but because they were shared. Then came the reality: The Independent states the UK saw more than 13,479 retail store closures in 2024 alone (about 37 a day). The decline of the British high street isn’t just about lost jobs or empty units, it’s about the quiet realisation that your town is suffering.

What fills the gap next is rarely another big retail name.

The high street becomes more unpredictable, more personal, less efficient, but in that imperfection, if we’re lucky, something local returns.