Dear LPG.

It is near enough the beginning of a New Year and 2019 conjures up positive thoughts in most minds of things we plan to do before it ends, and things we are planning to carry over from 2018, because we really meant to get them done but somehow there just was not enough time. 

It is also a time for looking back at the year passed and I remember getting a fairly substantial Maplin’s Gift voucher as one of my Christmas presents last year.  Two people in my family had identified what I needed and the other bought me one anyway which meant that I had the voucher for a shop which, all too soon after, we all learned was about to close its doors for the last time.  I think Toys R Us was another of this year’s casualties, while Mothercare was another name which just disappeared. 

For the sake of spending the money I quickly made some really unnecessary purchases as did so many others and I have to admit to feeling as if I was stealing things from a sinking ship, even though so many of the people who were in the shop were all doing exactly the same thing. 

The experience got me to thinking about all the shops that disappeared from our high streets over the last year, so I took a look on line and found that some seriously big names used 2018 to go into administration or close a decent proportion of their high street branches.  I have asked LPG to pass the information on to you.

I read sometime earlier last year that Lewisham Riverdale Centre is set to be either knocked down and rebuilt, or re vamped and given a new name, but I have to ask what difference does the name matter because if the council decide to take either route we will ultimately suffer as a result. 

Either the rents and leases on the new shops will rise out of all proportion and only what are left of the big conglomerate businesses will be able to afford to have a shop there, leaving us consumers with less choice; the ultimate one being go to the internet.  The other outcome could be less shops and more complexes of apartments which will be described as ‘affordable’ housing.

It makes me wonder which shops we are destined to lose this year…

GA, Crofton Park.

LPG has shared the web information as asked by GA who has made a quite disturbing observation although LPG have noticed that one can find websites showing all three of the now closed high street shopping chains that were mentioned in this post to still have some sort of on line presence.

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