shops a day disappear from High Streets

[joselync]

As we filmed, shoppers stopped to take photos when the shutters briefly opened giving a glimpse of the flashing lights and builders beavering away inside.

"We're creating a department store of fun," says Michael Harrison, the co-founder of Gravity which is due to open on 1 August.

"We have three bars, two restaurants, go-karting, a bowling alley, huge screens to watch sporting events and adventure golf. This is the future of the High Street. It's about experience," he says.

Michael has no shortage of retail landlords now ringing him up offering him potential new locations.

They're grappling with the need to rethink, or repurpose, empty shops. Latest figures suggest one in seven stores, on average, are lying vacant. And in some places the number is far higher.

The UK's biggest property company, Landsec, owns the Southside shopping mall where Gravity is based. Its other centres include Bluewater in Kent and Trinity in Leeds.

[tracym]

More than 8,700 British chain stores closed in the first half of 2021 as a combination of the coronavirus pandemic and the shift to online shopping continued to hit demand for bricks-and-mortar retail, new analysis has shown.