WARNING OF GHOST TOWN BRITAIN AS LOCAL SHOPS CLOSE

LOCAL shops and services in the UK are in a disastrous decline, according to a report today.

The report, Ghost Town Britain, from independent think-tank the New Economics Foundation, shows that between 1995 and 2000 the UK lost 20 per cent of corner shops, grocers, high street banks, post offices and pubs. It amounted to a total loss of more than 30,000 local economic outlets. A further 28,000 outlets will be lost by 2005. If current trends continue the number of local outlets will have dropped by nearly a third between 1990 and 2010. The

result is that communities and neighbourhoods in urban as well as rural areas will be without easy access to essential services, the report said.

Many communities of 3,000 people or less will have no such local outlets by 2010. In some low income areas this is already the reality. The New Economics Foundation warns that Britain now faces the "tipping point" where a number of outlets would crash dramatically rather than continue its current steady decline.

Andrew Simms of the New Economics foundation said: "Dickens is back. In the run-up to Christmas, the ghost of old economics is haunting Britain's communities, in our countryside, towns and cities."

The report called on the Government to tackle the reasons why many local areas were dying. They include: market domination by supermarkets; the "downsizing" of banks and post offices; transport systems that encourage car travel and weak and flawed planning controls.

Copyright 2002
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