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Hairdressers and takeaway restaurants have replaced banks and clothes shops in England and Wales, according to new research showing the transformation of high streets since 2010.
The report by policy research agency Public First argues that the rise of online banking and ecommerce has led to a shift towards “experience-based” leisure in town and city centres.
“We might be shopping less on the high street, but we’re going there to get our nails done or get a haircut . . . Things are filling the void,” said Scott Corfe, director of data and modelling at Public First.
Hairdressers and beauty salons — a category that includes nail bars — have more than doubled in big towns and cities since 2010. Nearly 2.5 new hairdressers or beauty salons have opened every day over the past 13 years.
A recent breakdown by the Local Data Company noted that hairdressers had declined in 2022-2023 while barbershops, beauty salons and nail bars had seen strong growth.
Opinion polling suggests shoppers are acutely aware of the influx of nail bars in particular, with 34 per cent of respondents to a Public First survey saying they thought there were too many manicurists on their high streets.
The rise of takeaways has also been pronounced, particularly in the north of England. There are an average of 11.2 takeaways per 10,000 people in Manchester, compared with just 7.2 in London.
“There is very much a north-south divide in the per capita number of takeaways,” said Corfe.
However, the largest increases in outlets over the past 15 years have been in the number of warehouses and road freight businesses serving ecommerce. The data, based on Office for National Statistics figures, does not distinguish between high street and non-high street business locations.
The closure of a number of major high street retailers, including Wilko, Debenhams and Poundworld, have been regarded as a sign of the UK’s faltering economy in recent years.
But Corfe noted that the shift to online shopping had also reduced the reliability of high streets as a growth indicator. “High streets might be in decline, but it’s not necessarily a story of a weak economy.”
The Labour party announced a plan, if elected, to improve British high streets earlier this year including measures to combat antisocial behaviour and build “banking hubs”.
