2030: The High Street Fights Back? Industry report
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Parcelhero’s influential report ‘2030: The Death of the High Street’ was released in 2016. It forecast huge changes to our town centres within 15 years because of the continued rise of e-commerce.
Ten years on, and with only four years remaining until 2030, it’s time to ask three key questions: Are our report’s predictions still on course? Did the Covid Pandemic accelerate the High Street’s decline even further? Or, were we wrong, and is the town centre set to stage a comeback? The timing is perfect for our sequel report: '2030: The High Street Fights Back? Adapting to a new retail age.'
1. Vanishing stores:
The first edition of our report forecast 100,000 currently trading stores would close by 2030. In fact, between the publication of the first edition of our report in 2016 and 2025, an estimated 122,682 physical stores have closed down. As we said back in 2016, ‘Such significant net losses will change the landscape of our town centres profoundly’.
2. Big names leave big holes:
Among the big brands to have disappeared from High Street fascias across the UK since our report was first published are: Jaeger, Toys R Us, Maplin, Mothercare, Thomas Cook, Debenhams, Beales, Laura Ashley, Harveys Furniture, McColls, Paperchase, Homebase, Ted Baker, Oddbins and Lloyds Pharmacy.
3. The war’s not over:
More big names, such as WH Smith, are even now vanishing from our High Streets. Meanwhile, brands such as Claire’s (which entered administration in August 2025 and again in January 2026) River Island, New Look and Boots have changed hands or restructured as retail’s game of musical chairs continues.
4. Dearly departed department stores:
Since our first report, department stores have been decimated. House of Fraser fell into administration in August 2018. Sports Direct bought the business, but the number of stores has halved from 59 to 23 today. Debenhams had 165 department stores but following its liquidation, all closed by 15 May 2021 (though Boohoo bought the website). Beales had 23 stores in 2019; all of them are now closed. Since 2016 over 83% of UK department store space has gone. An estimated 122,682 physical stores closed between the first edition of our report in 2016 and 2025. Many have never reopened since the end of the Covid pandemic.
5. Fashion victims:
In the first edition of our report, we said, ‘Online retailers are stripping the shirts from the back of high street clothing stores.’ Ten years on, thousands of clothing stores have closed. Arcadia Group alone closed over 200. In 2016, it would have been hard to believe that such household names could enter administration as L K Bennett, Karen Millen, Jack Wills, Cath Kidston, Oasis, Warehouse, Quiz, TM Lewin, Edinburgh Woolen Mill, Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Burtons.
6. Bad News for newsagents:
In our original report we said even WHSmith ‘cannot be saved by colouring books alone’. Sure enough, WHSmith has now sold its struggling High Street stores to Modella Capital and they are being rebranded TGJones. Paperchase went into administration at the end of January 2023 and you’ll only find its cards in Tesco stores. McColl’s has also vanished. Some analysts predict newsagents and stationers could be entirely extinct by 2035.
7. Don’t bank on banks:
Our first report stated, ‘As we move to online banking around 9,000 bank and building society branches have been closed since 1989 – and more closures are planned.’ Indeed, they were. Nearly 6,660 more bank branches closed between 2016 and 2025. Meanwhile, expect big names such as TSB, Co-operative Bank and Virgin Money to disappear from our streets following mergers.