If the British high street had hoped it could start the new year by putting its 2018 woes behind it, the succession of dire trading figures from last Christmas have proved it was sorely mistaken. British retailers suffered their worst Christmas sales since the depths of the recession in 2008 with December 2018 revenues rising by only 1.4% on the previous December, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.  

Sadly this is reflective of wider sluggishness across the British retail sector, compounded or perhaps created by the seemingly unstoppable rise of internet shopping. The UK high street conveniently lends itself as the physical embodiment of this decline, and a lethal combination of disappearing household-name retailers and testing economic conditions has led to some depressing statistics. 

…