HIGH streets are likely to look very different in future as the dust settles following the Tectonic shift in the retail sector, which has led to the collapse of two of its major players.

Familiar shop fronts and household brand names are expected to disappear from town centres and shopping malls now the Arcadia group, which owns Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins, has gone into administration and Mike Ashley’s £50 million loan deal to save Debenhams fell through.

With Christmas just around the corner, some 25,000 staff face the prospect of looking for a new job in the New Year.

Chris Geaves, chief executive of Sovereign Centros, who owns the Metrocentre in Gateshead, said the marketplace would look very different in future.

He said: “There is going to be lot of towns where holes are going to appear and you are going to see alternative uses going into them.

“The high street as we know it in some of the smaller towns will become more local and regional.

“You are also going to see some of the online retailers taking up space in high streets to get around some of their issues. There is going to be a lot of change.

“It is very sad to see this crumbling happening but these are businesses that have been going bust for while.”

Professor Lawrence Bellamy, Academic Dean for the Faculty of Business, Law and Tourism, at the University of Sunderland, the Covid-19 pandemic, has accelerated the shift to online for many consumers.

He said: “Restrictions on retail access has been the final straw for a number of firms, who would generally be doing a roaring trade with the run up to Christmas, a make or break time for many.

“The closure of these stores, which represent strong brands will leave some large gaps in the format of many high streets and shopping centres.

“While we can hope that some of these will be snapped up by corporate bargain hunters to be relaunched in the future they will undoubtedly be in a different format; leaner and smaller.”

Prof Bellamy warned the closure of popular big chain stores could also have a ‘domino effect’ and harm the prosperity of smaller outlets.

He said: “Many of the key brands act as anchors institutions for the smaller players too, drawing footfall into the city or town centres, so their loss will have secondary impacts.

“For high street formats to survive then they need to be recreated as potentially more concentrated boutique offerings, able to draw customers in with an offer more difficult to achieve online and providing a rich shopping experience for customers.

“The discounters are likely to continue to do well too, given the economic challenges of the future, but a multi-channel approach is the way to hedge your bets when everyone is reaching for their smartphone to order their disposable fashion.”

With ever-growing threat of online sellers such as Amazon, Prof Bellamy said high streets would depend on the support of people who live in the communities they serve in order to survive.

“Never was there a greater need for communities to support their local shops and spend their money there.

“This would make a huge difference over the months whilst the pandemic is managed to a close.”