According to an Experian survey conducted in 2013, Guildford, at that time, was the luxury shopping capital of the UK. But fast forward to today, it’s an endless strip of boarded-up businesses and signs proclaiming the arrival of the next new coffee shop. Guildford’s shoppers are now asking why. Why is the high street declining, and where are all these food retailers coming from? After all, who needs a coffee shop to break up your trip if there’s no shopping to be done?

The number of empty shops in Guildford town centre has more than doubled in six months according to a local councillor, and residents have been speculating on why this might be. Through a local social media group, I investigated what the members had to say about why they think the high street is in decline.

A common perception is that rates of rent in the town centre have skyrocketed and are now prohibitively high, particularly for those with smaller businesses. Another issue that has been raised by some residents is that too many shops in Guildford are inexpensive, and therefore do not provide the quality that people look for. This links to our fast-growing rates of rent, because companies with a smaller profit margin cannot risk taking on a lease, leaving the town centre full of coffee shops and cheap clothes and, as one resident pointed out when discussing the increase in food retailers, “there’s at least five shop spaces before you see another”.

Others have answered this question about what is causing the decline of the high street very differently. Some residents claim the fall is down to recession caused by Britain’s departure from the European Union in January 2020, not aided by the economic crisis of the Covid-19 Pandemic that followed it. Some residents blame the influx of coffee shops on the increased popularity of internet shopping, and the effects it has had on the high street retail industry, especially after endless time spent in lockdown. Others have simply put the cause of the decline back to shops that are too expensive for the majority to afford.

It is impossible to answer this question exactly, and there is clearly not one right answer, as the causes of the decline of the high street seem to be multi-faceted. However, what I can say is this: the residents of Guildford are not happy about the transformation that they are witnessing, and most have been left wondering what we can do to try in order to push Guildford back into the running as a prime shopping destination, as it was in 2013.