THE collapse of Austin Reed has sparked fears of a deepening crisis on the High Street.

The 116-year-old tailoring brand, which once counted Winston Churchill and Elizabeth Taylor among its customers, is the second UK retailer to enter administration in as many days, following the failure of BHS.

The failures continue a gloomy start to the year for parts of the retail trade which has seen *14 companies fail, affecting 989 stores and putting 20,245 jobs at risk. To put this in context, in the whole of 2015, a total of 25 retailers failed, affecting 728 shops and 6,845 workers.

It is still a long way from the retail crisis of 2008 when 54 companies collapsed, affecting 5,793 stores and 74,539 staff.

A statement from Austin Reed's administrators blamed a challenging retail market and cash flow difficulties.

“Traditional retail businesses with high-street stores have high fixed costs,” Alan Stewart, chief financial officer of Tesco, said, adding: “If their business starts changing and they don’t have a capital structure that’s sufficiently strong to withstand that change then they’re in a weakened position.”

Higher disposable incomes aren’t translating into increased retail spending. Retail sales fell 1.3 percent in March, according to the Office for National Statistics. The number of shoppers on British high streets declined 3.9 percent in March, according to data from researcher Springboard.

The decline in traffic is a “continuation of a longer-term trend caused by on-going structural change within the retail industry -customers don’t differentiate between buying online, on a mobile device or in-store,” Helen Dickinson, chief executive of industry lobby group the British Retail Consortium, said.

BHS claims administrators have already received more than 30 expressions of interest from potential bidders. However, analysts warned buyers would be more likely to take parts of the 88 year-old business than save the whole group.

BHS brought in administrators on Monday to sell all or part of the firm, but it will keep trading in the meantime.

The move has left almost 11,000 staff fearing the worst.

And 20,000 BHS pension holders will be anxious about future payments as it grapples with £571m in pension debt.

If a buyer for BHS is not found, it would be the biggest High Street collapse since Woolworth's in 2008.

High street casualties of the last decade include: Thresher wines and spirits, JJB Sports, Borders book shops, Blockbuster video rentals, Zavvi CD and DVD retailer, Blacks outdoor equipment, Comet electricals, Phones 4u, Brantano and Barratts shoe shops, Collectables, Peters Bakery, Past Times, and MFI.

*Figures: The Centre for Retail Research.