In recent years, we have seen a huge decline in business success, both in Darlington and in the UK, with the lifespan of small businesses in 2022 being 8.6 years, decreasing from 10.7 years in 2000: in Darlington, this is epitomised in the state of our high street and our indoor market, now a barren shell of it’s former self. For example, prior to 2018 businesses such as Fenwick’s butchers were thriving in the bustle of businesses which were once situated in the Indoor Market, however, hardly four years later, Fenwicks announced it’s closure in April of 2022; it was a staple shop of the Darlington Marketplace, open for over 3 decades, and yet not even it could survive the economic struggles of this decade; but who is responsible, and how can we recover?

 

It would be apt to immediately place blame upon the pandemic which we experienced over the last four years, and its economic repercussions which put jobs and businesses alike under great strain, and despite this being a part of the issue at hand, with some of the problems of the bygone pandemic still effecting us to this day, it does not necessarily make it the main contributor to the issue, as many businesses were able to adapt and move past the obstacles which social distancing and self isolation posed. Fenwick’s butchers themselves managed to move to home deliveries in order to survive. Instead this decline in high street popularity is something which has been on the rise for years, even before the pandemic, with the cost of living crisis and higher convenience of online shopping creating a monster that evidently no business can avoid forever. Statistics show that as a result of rising inflation, the popularity of out of town shopping centres and the utility of online retail, the decline in high street popularity has been 5 percent since 2015; it seems it is something that we cannot avoid, not just here in Darlington but across the country, and across the globe. So the real question is, what can we do?

 

As hopeless as the situation is, there is a solution to be found, and we as a community are the starting point; we must simply be able to support businesses in our towns, of course with the convenience of shopping online being an added bonus, but using the town centre as a social hub, an economic hub and a tourist hub as a way to rejuvenate what once was lively and thriving. The bottom line is that if we do not begin to support our businesses, people's livelihoods, this could be the end of the high street as we know it.